Luna Rossa crewman Andy Horton says his team are not fazed by Team New Zealand's rendezvous with Alinghi.
As part of their buildup to the Louis Vuitton Cup final, which started overnight, Team New Zealand lined up against the defenders for two short races.
Details remain sketchy butit is understood both teams raced old boats and ended the day with a win each.
While Team New Zealand were racing Alinghi, Luna Rossa were just battling it out among themselves with some in-house racing.
"It could have been their in-house boat. It looked like they had some great races, it was pretty tight. They [Team New Zealand] are not going to read a lot into it but just the fact they were racing another good strong team was good preparation," said Horton.
Luna Rossa had "probably" considered racing Alinghi at some point but decided to keep it in-house.
"We have a strong second team and we thought we had some good practice, some good starts and races."
Team New Zealand tactician Terry Hutchinson said the team's strategy was to prepare themselves as best as they possibly could for Luna Rossa.
"In the previous semifinal, I think Luna Rossa was underestimated. We are not going to make that mistake.
"In respect to Alinghi we agreed not to discuss the performance of either boat. For us it was about other details within our team we were working on to ensure we were ready for Luna Rossa."
