AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Alinghi, Oracle and Victory took 2-0 leads in the best-of-seven America's Cup challenger quarterfinals Thursday, while New York's Stars & Stripes evened its match with Britain's GBR Challenge at 1-1.

San Francisco's Oracle syndicate beat Seattle's OneWorld by 17 seconds, while Sweden's Victory beat France's Le Defi by 1:10.

Stars & Stripes beat GBR by 1:17 after losing by 1 minute when the teams met Wednesday.

Oracle led OneWorld by as many as 36 seconds and as few as 10 seconds at various marks Thursday. The largest margin between the teams at any stage the day before had been 14 seconds.

Oracle's lead was 30 seconds at the final mark Thursday, but that advantage was jeopardized when it broke its spinnaker pole at the top of the final run. The crewmen rigged a sleeve to bind the broken pole and hoisted it into position while maintaining the lead.

OneWorld jibed to attack its opponent but couldn't overtake it.

Stars & Stripes led around all-marks Wednesday but lost its lead on the final run when it attempted to engage GBR to offset a pre-start penalty. The New York yacht, the resurrected USA-77 which sank and was salvaged off Long Beach, Calif., in mid-July, led throughout its race again Thursday, steadily increasing its lead.

Switzerland's Alinghi beat Italy's Prada by only 8 seconds, although Alinghi actually had an easier time of it than on Wednesday, when it won by 1:18. That margin was inflated by a penalty.