Oracle Team USA signed off from the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers with two wins and a bonus point on Saturday, and now wait to see who they will face in the America’s Cup Match starting in 12 days’ time.

Emirates Team New Zealand are the favourites to fill that role, with the defeat by Oracle on the weekend meaning they would start the America’s Cup Match on minus-one points, requiring eight wins to reclaim the “Auld Mug”. But must first they must get past Land Rover BAR in the Challenger Play-offs semi-finals, and then either SoftBank Team Japan or Artemis Racing in the finals.

The four challengers have some tough days ahead of them, as do Oracle, who will not be spending their time doing anything other than preparing hard to defend their title.

Winning the Qualifiers does not mean that Spithill is resting on his laurels.

“There is a lot of development left on the table,” he said. “Every night we’re doing changes, I’m sure it’s no different to the other teams.”

The varying nature of the winds on the Great Sound, and the increasing amount of technology that goes into this version of America’s Cup Class yachts, means that teams have multiple set-ups to practise and race in.

Oracle’s issue, however, is that while their competitors are making adjustments in the heat of battle, they are not.

“The challenge for us is we don’t get that battle-hardened racing that these guys will get in the semis and finals,” Spithill said. “We have seen how tight the racing is now and you can only imagine that getting even more intense.

“So, that’s the tough one for us. However, we do get to watch and with the technology and the footage now, there will be a lot to learn just watching.

“Plus we also get equal time on the racecourse. Our development programme keeps going forward, we’ve got a lot of stuff in the pipeline that’s going to come out. We have to learn on the water; we also have to learn watching these guys.”

One thing Oracle do have is a slight mental edge, which Spithill has been keen to reinforce. He said Burling had made some “fundamental errors” in their race on Saturday, errors that he said he had seen in the first race between the two on May 27.

In all, Oracle beat New Zealand twice in the Qualifiers, although after Saturday’s loss Peter Burling, the New Zealand helmsman, maintained his line from throughout the past week: that New Zealand were learning all the time.

“Today [Saturday] was a pretty good learning experience,” he said. “We obviously weren’t good enough out there today, but we’ll address that and we’ll come back stronger.”

First, though, New Zealand need to beat two of the other teams contesting the play-offs. They picked BAR because they thought that was their easiest route to the play-off finals.We’ve had a look at the forecast for the coming week and we think it’s our best chance for progressing forward,” Burling said.

“We’re really happy that we’ve made it through this first round and we’ve got to this stage.”