With just over 17 days remaining before the first race of the Louis Vuitton Act 13, the confidence is flowing for Areva.

"The goal is to win and, if not, is not neccessary to participate", said Stéphane Kandler during a press conference in Paris on Thursday. "We are striving for the victory. We struggled, we fought and we survived with our weapons".

For the young head of the syndicate, "many things will occur. Some are under pression and are not entitled to the error due to to the money invested so far".

But in typical down-to-earth fashion, Dalton adds the rider: "Whether it's where the team should be, I don't know."

In a more down-to-earth fashion, Kandler weakens their ambitions, considering the campaign as a whole.

"we are aware that the semi-finals is the most ambitious objective of our campaign", he adds. "We are aware we were late and we are not the richest. The semi-finals are the hard hurdle to pass but after, everything is possible".

Only one week is left until the America's Cup starts with the Louis Vuitton Act 13. So there's not much time for the teams to prepare themselves.

"The America's Cup is a game in which you have to strong in all the field", says Stéphane Kandler. "Our force is our method of working and together we will do the difference. During a match anything can happen and ten years of work can be lost in one manoeuver".

considering the performance of the new FRA 93 and the results of the first head-to-head in Valencia, the French are fully confident in their abilities.

"There is an agreement between the syndicate and the outcome have to remain secret", said Stéphane Kandler about the matches. "Some are won, some are lost".

"We are feeling that the boat is really well balanced, he showed that it is solid when we sailed in breeze when some of our concurrents had trouble dealing with. We don’t have many time to developpe the boat but we are happy".

"We don't have reach the maximum level with FRA 93 , but the others don't either", adds Dimitri Nicolopoulos, coordinator of the Design Team. "We launched the boat very late and we had 2 months and a half when some had six".

"All in all, there are two groups in the fleet: a Team New Zealand family with kind of Container ship, a 'U shape' of hull and hard sides", he adds. "The Swedes, the Chinese and one of the Prada's boats belong to this family. With a more round boat, we e are in the other with Mascalzone, Oracle and the Spanish".

At the end of the conference, Stéphane Kandler recognizes the penalty imposed on his team for for a breach of the Protocol (Areva Challenge will see its sail limit for the Louis Vuitton Cup reduced from 45 to 43 sails) is not so severe.