I always thought that level of data made available under the new coverage technology would be an advantage to the defender. The defender has usually tried to find a way to partake in the challenger series but the other teams usually frown really hard on that. It's the only advantage they have in that they get to test and develop against each other before taking on the defender.

Now, maybe, they may want the defender to take part in the challenger series so they can get a better idea about what they are up against.

However, clearly, even with access to all of that data on TNZ during the LV series, Oracle was not ready to race them when they started...Gladwell admits that Oracle wasn't up to speed early in the match so he kinda kills his own point about how the performance data hurt TNZ with that admission. I think Grant Dalton's earlier statement about how TNZ peaked too early is a more valid assessment of what went wrong. If TNZ had lost a couple races early in the match do you think Oracle would have been digging as deep for solutions?