Spain’s Diego Botin stunned heavyweights Tom Slingsby of Australia and Peter Burling of New Zealand by brilliantly steering Los Gallos to victory in SailGP’s $2 million, winner-take-all Grand Final on San Francisco Bay on Sunday.

Botin’s thrilling victory in the dash across the tops of the waves for sailing’s biggest cash prize snapped Slingsby’s three-season run as champion of tech titan Larry Ellison’s global league and denied Burling a breakthrough victory.

Spain qualified for the Grand Final thanks to a mindboggling error by French skipper Quentin Delapierre and his crew in an earlier fleet race that knocked them out of the regatta.

Botin took full advantage of that gift and never let trans-Tasman Sea rivals Australia and New Zealand engage in an anticipated showdown between skippers with deep America’s Cup and Olympic pedigrees.

Botin hit the starting line first and led his more accomplished rivals all the way around the course in front of the Golden Gate Bridge aboard his foiling 50-foot catamaran with a red outline of a rooster on the wingsail.

“I cannot describe the feeling now,” Botin said before heading ashore for a Champagne shower with his crew. “It was an amazing race. We nailed the start and we managed to keep it up. We were lucky because we broke a rudder or something on the last downwind but we managed to stay in front.”

It appeared that the Australians had a technical issue as well as they tried to chase down the Spanish late in the race.

Slingsby won both fleet races Sunday to claim the San Francisco regatta that preceded the Grand Final.

Late in the fourth fleet race of the San Francisco regatta, France approached the final turning mark on port and needed to keep clear of Denmark on starboard, but turned too close and made contact. The impact snapped a rudder and sent the catamaran up on its port hull, where it hung precipitously for a few heart-stopping seconds as the crew avoided a capsize.

Botin dashed ahead to finish in front of France in the 10-boat fleet. France was hit with an eight-point penalty and the damage kept it out of the fifth fleet race, opening the door for Spain’s big victory.