Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli is Italy's AC75 challenger for the 38th America's Cup, skippered by Ruggero Tita and backed by Prada. The team has done something no challenger has ever done before: signed the defending champion's helmsman. Peter Burling, who steered Emirates Team New Zealand to victory in 2017, 2021, and 2024, now sails under the Italian flag in what may be the most significant transfer in the 175-year history of the competition.

Burling joins a crew that was already formidable. Marco Gradoni, the youngest world champion in sailing history, is developing at a rate that has the entire sport watching. Margherita Porro adds depth and experience. But it is Burling's presence that changes the equation. He brings intimate knowledge of Team New Zealand's design philosophy, tactical approach, and the way their boat behaves at the edge of its performance envelope. That intelligence, combined with Italian engineering and Prada's financial backing, creates a challenge that the defender cannot dismiss.

No helmsman has ever won the America's Cup and then switched to a challenger for the next edition. Burling is sailing into unprecedented territory, and the narrative tension is extraordinary. Can he beat the team he built? Can he adapt to Italian sailing culture after a decade in the New Zealand programme? Will his knowledge of Team New Zealand's weaknesses prove decisive, or will the defender's evolution since 2024 make that intelligence obsolete?

Luna Rossa has been a recurring America's Cup challenger, reaching the Cup Match in 2000 (losing to Team New Zealand) and winning the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2024 before falling in Barcelona. Italy's passion for sailing gives the campaign national significance that extends beyond sport. When Luna Rossa races, the country watches. Italian craftsmanship, from the carbon fiber hulls to the engineering solutions that live below the waterline, meets New Zealand sailing genius in a combination that has never existed before.

The team's base in Cagliari, Sardinia, gives them home-water advantage for the Preliminary Regatta in May 2026. The Gulf of Cagliari's conditions are in Luna Rossa's bones; they train there year-round. The first competitive encounter between Burling and his former teammates will happen on water Luna Rossa knows better than anyone.

Whether Burling can win the Cup against the team he built is one of the great narrative questions in modern sailing. Luna Rossa has the talent, the funding, and now the insider knowledge. What happens next could rewrite the sport's history.