Across some of the constituent events Herrmann finished in sixth position in the Bermudes 1000, seventh in the Rolex Fastnet Race and the Vendée Arctic and fifth in the Route du Rhum to return a set of regular finishes which saw him finish on top of the championship leaderboard just ahead of Yannick Bestaven.

In order to maximise the reliability of his boat and gain the most racing experience, Herrmann and Team Malizia elected to compete in all of the IMOCA Globe Series races between 2018 and the Vendée Globe.

“In order to prepare well, to be safe and to create value for our sponsors and to develop the project, we wanted to sail in all of the IMOCA programme and do as much as possible and we did,” said Herrmann.

“And we finished all the races and we never abandoned a race, which is great. There is a little bit of luck involved, of course, but not abandoning is really important for me and is more important than the result in any specific race.” said Herrmann.

 “Of course I am delighted but we have to be honest about it,”he said. “I think Yannick’s project started later than ours and not everyone has the financial means or the planning possibilities to come to all the races.”

• Monaco Globe Series (June 1-8, 2018): double race, coefficient 2
• Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe (November 4, 2018): single-handed race, coefficient 4
• Bermuda 1000 race (May 5, 2019): double, coefficient 2
• Rolex Fastnet Race (August 3, 2019): double, coefficient 1
• Transat Jacques-Vabre (October 27, 2019): double, coefficient 4
• Vendée-Arctique-Les Sables d'Olonne (July 4, 2020): solo, coefficient 4
• Vendée Globe (November 8, 2020, finish early 2021): single-handed, coefficient 10