LYMINGTON'S Sir Ben Ainslie hopes to learn from England's terrible recent World Cup displays as Land Rover BAR bid to finally bring the America's Cup home.

Roy Hodgson's men last summer returned home from Brazil on the back of the country's worst-ever World Cup showing and the country's rugby union team fared no better on home soil.

Boss Stuart Lancaster paid the price for a humiliating group stage exit by resigning, while the cricket team fell at the same hurdle on the world stage earlier in the year.

Ainslie is hoping Land Rover BAR can learn from those disappointments, with the tiny margins between success and failure sharpening the mind ahead of the 35th America's Cup.

"It is very hard not being on the inside to say those teams aren't doing a good job or we can do a better job," the four-time Olympic gold medallist said.

"Actually, we worked quite a lot with Stuart Lancaster - he came and spoke to our team at our first team-building event and I went to speak to the players at Pennyhill Park last year.

"Particularly with the rugby, you look at that World Cup and Wales and Australia performances and see the margins are just so small between success and failure in sport.

"That's why we do it - that pressure that comes from it. But it is incredible, isn't it? You can go from hero to zero very quickly.

"I think, for us, actually it is a lesson there that you can have all the talent and can have all the potential, but you've got to try and avoid the mistakes, the costly mistakes, when it really counts.

"Those teams will bounce back, we can hopefully learn from that.

"I think British sport has come a long way in the last 20 years or so, across the board whether it is Olympics, rugby, football or tennis.

"Sailing has come a long way too and we would love to be able to right that wrong of Britain having never won the cup. That would be huge, I think, for the country."

The America's Cup - the oldest international sporting trophy - began off the Isle of Wight in 1851 but has never returned to British waters.

Land Rover BAR are looking to end that long wait and have brought the country's best sailing talent together with its engineering expertise, including former McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh.

"On the sailing side, the World Series is going (well) and we want to be competing at the top end of this fleet, which we are doing," Ainslie said.

"On the technical development side, the key focus in the next 12 months is getting that right, to get that final design right.

"Martin joining the team four or five months ago has made a big difference, helping us get the structure right, organisation and management."

Having built a permanent base in Portsmouth, Land Rover BAR are setting up a temporary one in Hamilton's naval dockyard in Bermuda to aid preparations.

The team will be based there from next December until the America's Cup gets under way in 2017 and Ainslie believes the rapid progress they are making means the Auld Mug is a realistic goal.

"It is such a complex challenge, that's the thing," he said.

"All of our designs are from scratch, whereas the existing teams can just move on from where they finished off at the last Cup.

"There's a massive amount we've had to catch up and you can't underestimate of a challenge that is.

"We have been on the back foot on that front but I think with Martin, with the guys we have in our design team, we can catch up and hopefully overtake those guys, but it will take a huge amount of hard work and effort."