AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- OneWorld of Seattle finished the first round of the America's Cup challenger series unbeaten, defeating Oracle of San Francisco by 40 seconds in a makeup race Monday.

''It's fabulous to come out of the series without a loss,'' OneWorld skipper Peter Gilmour said. ''This is a position we never imagined we'd be in and it's a real credit to the team, top to bottom and side to side.''

OneWorld led around all marks on a course shortened from 18.5 to 12.5 nautical miles, sending Oracle to its third consecutive defeat.

Oracle regrouped later in the day to beat Sweden's Victory Challenge by 10 minutes, 45 seconds, finishing the first round with a 5-3 record and in third place in the nine-team standings.

The winner of the four-month Louis Vuitton Cup will face defender New Zealand in the America's Cup final in February.

Also Monday, Britain's GBR Challenge won its third consecutive race, beating Italy's Mascalzone Latino by 54 seconds to end the round with four victories. An Italian protest was denied.

New York's Stars & Stripes had to wait until the wind dropped for its match against Le Defi and then won by default when the French yacht didn't make it inside the start box within 15 minutes of the restart. Le Defi earlier had gear failure.

Four of the five makeup races were completed Monday. The all-Italian race between Prada and Mascalzone Latino was put off until the start of the next round on Oct. 22.

All nine syndicates have seven days to fine-tune their yachts for the second round, after which one team will be eliminated before the quarterfinals.

The OneWorld-Oracle showdown was marked by a prestart that was the roughest of 10 days of challenger racing, with the yachts whirling about each other and coming within inches of a collision.

The race featured a rivalry between Larry Ellison, the software mogul who leads the Oracle syndicate, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who heads the Seattle syndicate with Craig McCaw.

OneWorld was the only team with eight victories from eight races in the round-robin competition but finished even with Switzerland's Team Alinghi, which had seven wins from eight races. The Seattle team lost a point for a rules infraction before racing began.

Gilmour said his team understood that the penalty by the arbitration panel posed an obstacle.

''So we said we'd have to work that much harder to do a little better,'' he said. ''Everyone jumped to it and that really shone through on the water.''

The OneWorld-Oracle race had been postponed for a second time Sunday because of wind problems on Hauraki Gulf.

OneWorld's James Spithill, 23, is the youngest helmsman among the nine teams. But during the prestart Monday, he had the better of Oracle's Peter Holmberg, the world match racing champion.

''He's very patient, very mature and very controlled -- a pleasure to see,'' Gilmour said.

OneWorld crossed the start line in control and forged ahead on the first beat to lead by 22 seconds at the top mark. The lead expanded to 46 seconds on the first downwind leg and to 1:04 at the final mark.

Gilmour remains wary of Oracle despite its setbacks.

''They definitely have a sweet spot and they will exploit it if you let them,'' he said. ''They're a pretty sharp outfit.''