Can the Americans win on US Independence Day?

It looks like a day of change on the waters of the Gulf of Cagliari today. The Mistral wind is blowing out of the north-west just now and so all morning there has been more breeze and cooler temperatures than over all of the previous days at the Audi Region of Sardinia Trophy Regatta.
Out on the race area this wind will be blowing cross offshore down on to the race course area, so it should make for a completely different set of tactical options, with more shifts in wind direction and changes in pressure.
“It will be very shifty, but it should be relatively easy to read it on the water. The shifts might be as much as 20 degrees at times so it should be a good day for the tacticians, with many opportunities for them to get back into the races.” suggests Andrea Mura (ITA), Artemis' local knowledge expert who grew up sailing on these waters.

And contrary to forecasts of no wind for Saturday, the final day here, Mura maintains that there will be a return to sea-breeze conditions:

"The Mistral today will clean up the air and remove a lot of humidity and that will be good for the generation of the thermal sea breeze."

Three races should be achievable in these wind conditions, and of course it is 4th July, America’s Independence Day as well as being an important day for the regatta and circuit leader Quantum Racing (USA) who have won three races and head the Audi Region of Sardinia Trophy Regatta by just two points ahead of Mean Machine (MON).
“ Our target today is really to stay clean and sail smart because this is a very different breeze, much more shifty. The plan is to sail hard physically and nail as many shifts as possible.” says Mark Mendelblatt (USA), who sailed with skipper Terry Hutchinson (USA) in the Louis Vuitton Cup winning Emirates Team New Zealand last year, won the 2005 Bacardi Cup in the Star and who is sailing as a grinder/strategist on Quantum Racing. On the question of whether winning this regatta is important on their target list, he comments:

“I think there are two separate things, the main goal of course is to win the Audi MedCup Circuit but I think we want to finish this regatta strong and could win this won too, that can’t hurt us at all in our overall goal.”
“I think we should get three races today and so I am going to be sore tonight.”
“The Fourth of July is huge for us, huge.” chuckles Mendelblatt, “So hopefully we can be in a festive mood tonight.”