Emirates Team New Zealand cemented their place as favourites to challenge Oracle Team USA for the America’s Cup after another win over Artemis Racing yesterday.

Less than 24 hours after their controversial victory over the Swedes, Team New Zealand proved that they do not necessarily need any help to overcome opponents.

They still got some though and another penalty, this time called correctly against Artemis, gave Peter Burling and his team some breathing space in the run for the finish line.

The win keeps New Zealand alone in second place in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers standings, a point behind Oracle and a point ahead of Land Rover BAR. Burling though is not ready to embrace the favourites tag just yet.

“For us we are just trying to improve as much as we can as we go through,” the Team New Zealand helmsman said.

“Definitely one of our goals in this challenger series is to keep improving, keep working on things. I think one of the things that was really pleasing about how we went today was that we actually tidied up a lot of the errors we had yesterday [Monday].

“I definitely felt like the boat was a lot quicker, and we were doing better manoeuvres and I think that’s just full credit to our team that we managed to do that.”

Not that New Zealand were error-free, but they recovered from what could have been a fatal mistake to win a race that lacked the excitement of the first episode.

A penalty again cost the Swedes dear, although this time there was no arguing with the call, as they clearly infringed as the boats approached the windward mark. The right-of-way penalty forced Artemis to drop back as the teams raced for the finish.

“We were approaching on port and New Zealand were on starboard and it was pretty clear from our perspective it was a marginal cross, so we decided to take it on and tack above and halfway through the cross we realised it wasn’t going to happen,” Nathan Outteridge, the Artemis skipper, said. “Thankfully Pete [Burling] saw us and went behind us and we copped a penalty fair and square there.”

Victory capped an impressive performance from Burling and his team who overcame a serious loss of control on the second leg as they bounced into Artemis’s wake and their weather rudder popped out of the water, forcing them into a nosedive.

The mistake cost them 400 metres, but New Zealand gradually hauled the Swedes back and were neck-and-neck before a penalty again decided the outcome.

“We had a really good gybe and we were sailing really fast just in below Nathan [Outteridge], we were just trying to give him a little luff and then both rudders came out of the water and spun and put the bows in,” Burling said.

“I think after that point we did an amazing job to bounce back and grind our way back into the race. The guys were producing plenty of oil so we could keep pulling off good manoeuvre after good manoeuvre. I don’t think we would have been able to do that yesterday [Monday] so full credit to the work the guys have been doing overnight.”

The ability to manoeuvre as New Zealand do has much to do with the cycling arrangement that has been put into the boat to replace the traditional griding set-up. Burling is understandably happy with how things are working out.

“We wouldn’t be able to sail our boat without it frankly,” he said. “The guys are putting in a massive amount of effort and they have trained very hard for this for a long time. It’s not something you can do overnight and we are really happy with it.”

While New Zealand are progressing, Artemis are struggling. The momentum of their World Series performances and confidence gained during the practice sessions is slowly ebbing away.

Disappointed is how Outteridge described his day, which also included a second defeat at the hands of Land Rover BAR.

Artemis are still level on points with SoftBank Team Japan and Groupama Team France, who both race tomorrow, at the wrong end of the standings. One of the three is likely to be eliminated on Saturday when the round robin phase of the qualifiers comes to an end.

With two days off before they race again Outteridge said his team would regroup and then “come out fighting”.