Mascalzone Latino is pulling for BMW Oracle Racing to win in the courtroom and on the water.

Team owner Vincenzo Onorato said the integrity and future of the sport's oldest competition can only be saved if the American team emerges as the champion after a face-off with Alinghi.

"The best solution now would be to hold the multihull challenge between Oracle and Alinghi, even if, yet again, the latter try to delay the event using every possible tactic," Onorato said Thursday in a statement. "For the survival of the America's Cup, we must hope that Oracle wins, and after that we'll have to roll up our sleeves and work hard."

"The whole problem stems from the protocol drawn up by Alinghi", he added. "Because this is a document designed to regulate a competition which totally lacks any sense of fair play: Alinghi claims the right to choose, at its sole discretion, the regatta judges, the committee, the umpires and the measurers, even going so far as to state that they must be its employees; in short, it unilaterally lays down the rules of the game. Alinghi, again at its sole discretion, claims the right to accept a challenge or to penalise a rival".

"Alinghi took advantage of the extremely weak economic position in which most of the teams found themselves to impose its own will," Onorato concluded. "This event has been profoundly damaged by Alinghi."