America's Cup 2017: Team NZ mistake crucial to Oracle Team USA's day one win James Spithill

James Spithill is in no doubt about what led to Oracle Team USA's rundown of Team New Zealand in their first showdown of the 35th America's Cup.

The two crews raced off for the first time since San Francisco in 2013 on day one of the challenger series. The holders came out on top despite the Kiwi boat leading for a majority of the race.

The Australian gave credit to his crew for mowing down New Zealand skipper Peter Burling and crew,  but was adamant that it wouldn't have been possible without a tactical error made by Team New Zealand towards the end of leg five.

"I think it was the mistake that Pete and Team New Zealand did at the top mark," says Spithill.

"The boys did a great job on the second lap upwind of really out muscling them and getting us back in the race and creating that situation."

Team New Zealand turned a three-second deficit at the first mark into a 20-second lead by the end of the fourth, but Burling decided not to cover two early tack's by Oracle early on the fifth and that ultimately cost the Kiwi boat the race.

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For his part the Olympic champion wore it on his chin.

"We had moments against Oracle when we were pretty quick, but then obviously from myself I made a few mistake from the tactical side heading into that last top mark to let Oracle back past," Burling says.

However the 26-year-old was relishing the weeks ahead, especially with the boat showing so much raw pace on the first day of competition.

"All the systems were working really well  it's been an incredible push over the last few days, we have a massive amount to improve on but we are really happy with how we checked in today and we know we have a lot to come and we are really excited about it."

Spithill was also looking forward instead of back, claiming that his team had a lot of work to do after a few scrappy errors on the first day, despite being the only boat to record two day one wins the Oracle skipper said it wasn't all roses on board.

"We are not happy with the way we sailed to be completely honest," says Spithill.

"We came away with the two wins and that's what is Important and we look forward to tomorrow."

Team New Zealand has another two races tomorrow, against Great Britain and the Dean Barker-led Japanese syndicate.

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