The final showdown

Emirates Team New Zealand line up against Luna Rossa today in the Louis Vuitton Cup decider

Emirates Team New Zealand versus Luna Rossa - the final showdown in the Louis Vuitton Cup gets underway in Valencia today with another first to five series.

Much race punditry is going on at the moment trying to predict who will win this contest and get to face Alinghi in the America's Cup itself.

One can look at the statistics - on paper the two boats seem very even. Luna Rossa beat the Kiwis in Round Robin 1, while the Kiwis turned the tables in Round Robin 2. Go back into 2006 and again the two boats are even, although the Kiwis lost one race to the Italians after they had been leading at the weather mark.

But in reality what we have come to learn from this series is that forecasts of form seem to amount to very little in this contest.

Among the challengers this time around there have been the three big players - BMW Oracle Racing, Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa. While one might imagine that the performance of these experienced and well oiled giant machines would be fairly consistent showing only minor fluctations over the period of the competition, in fact one of the most noticable things is just how significant the upwards and downwards trends in their performance has been.

To recap - when racing resumed in Valencia at the beginning of April, Emirates Team New Zealand on paper seemed to be the form campaign having won the previous year's Acts. And yet in Round Robin One it was BMW Oracle Racing that seemed to be the class Act, dropping only one race to the Spanish. The performance of Dickson's team was most memorable for its almost cavalier approach on the race course, frequently losing the start or missing the first shift to come from behind to take victory in some nail biting matches. But this style of racing, relying solely on boat speed to see you through while printworthy no longer works in America's Cup racing. This combined with having lost races due to minor technical problems such as a broken headfoil was BMW Oracle Racing's undoing. In fact the team never really seemed to recover completely from the headfoil incident that caused them the most embarrassing loss against China Team in Round Robin Two. If BMW Oracle Racing had the fastest boat of the challengers in USA 98 then this must be one of the first occasions in AC history when the fastest boat hasn't won.

Conversely Emirates Team New Zealand started racing this year in Valencia in fairly lacklustre style. In Round Robin One they dropped three races to their two other 'big three' rivals and Mascalzone Latino but turned this around in Round Robin Two when they were unbeaten. Their semi-finals against Desafio Espanol was not as decisive as Luna Rossa's victory over BMW Oracle Racing but since Round Robin Two they have generally been on an upward trend that strategist Ray Davies says is a deliberate ploy by the team to try and ensure they peak at the right moment.

Luna Rossa have also been showing a marked improvement over recent weeks. At the start of racing this year they seemed to be the weakest of the 'big three' and this was reflected in their cumulative points from the Acts prior to 2007. And yet in the Round Robins they appeared to fire up, finishing second ahead of the Kiwis but behind BMW Oracle in Round Robin One and second, level with BMW Oracle in Round Robin Two, an upward trend that has continued, enabling their rapid dispatch of the BMW Oracle in the semis.

So going into the finals both teams are on an upward trend, with Luna Rossa we think more sharply on that trend than the Kiwis but coming perhaps from a slightly lower starting point.

There is perhaps little to choose between the boats in terms of their performance. At the end of the semis Luna Rossa's sweet spot seemed to be in the 14-15 knot region while Emirates Team New Zealand was more around the 10-12 knot mark. Since then both teams have had the opportunity to remode and further tweak their boats so this situation may have changed (another reason why Cup punditry is so hard).

Sail handling and crew work with both teams is pretty near immaculate as is the reliability of both boats particularly after two months of solid racing. At the end of the day this competition is most likely to be won by the afterguards and the important moments: the pre-start, who comes off the line in better shape, who chooses the correct side to make the most of the first shift and who generally calls the shifts better around the race course, and lost by the crews if there are the smallest errors boat handling.

In terms of the complex nature of the pre-starts James Spithill is certainly on form at the moment. But equally important is that he seems to have the upper hand in the psychological battle - he has gained a reputation for being the class act in pre-starts. Dean Barker is no slouch when it comes to the pre-starts but one gets the impression his performance depends upon how much fire there is in his belly on any particular day. The Kiwi team also rely a lot on set moves and they may come unstuck if Spithill gets Italian on them and starts throwing some curved balls their way.

Once across the start line then the approaches of the two boats varies enormously. If the Kiwis are ahead they sail a most conservative race in terms of how tightly they cover whereas Luna Rossa, with fleet racing specialist and multi-Olympic medallist Torben Grael is calling tactics, have more a tendency to follow Grael's wind nose - fine if Grael is right but with the risk of opening up a passing lane for the boat behind if he is not.

So where's our money going? On Luna Rossa. It will be interesting to see what would happen if the Kiwi go to 0-3 or 0-4 down - would Ainslie be brought in to replace Barker? But then we thought BMW Oracle Racing would pull through in the end. So the Kiwis to win... definitely.

Follow the act as it unfolded in our live Race Blog .