The Alonso Curse Revisted: Nothing Newey Under the Sun

The Alonso Curse Revisted: Nothing Newey Under the Sun

There are only a few certainties in life. Death, taxes, and Fernando Alonso being in the wrong car at the wrong time. Three years ago, it looked like the infamous Alonso Curse could be lifting. Aston Martin was starting to see front-of-the-pack action. Alonso was on the podium the first three races of the season. Had a time traveller told you back then that by 2026 Alonso would be in an Adrian Newey car, you’d be expecting him to make space in his trophy cabinet for a third world title.

Just the notion of them being in the same team would have sounded far-fetched back then. Newey was Red Bull for the rest of his career. Until Christian Horner became the focal point of a team split. Newey was lured across by more than just Lawrence Stroll’s money (that undoubtedly helped). He was given an active role in shaping more than just the design of cars. He’d be a shareholder and a person with genuine authority. Aston Martin had shiny new facilities and a good track record of investment.

Newey said he needed a new challenge. The option Ferrari presumably offered was his old role in red overalls. Aston Martin may have – initially, at least – overextended Newey. Attempting to put his Midas touch on everything within reach. He was announced as the Team Principal, only for that role to blur and slowly retract as his position as Managing Technical Partner was reaffirmed. Newey is the most successful F1 car designer of all time. It doesn’t mean he can run all technical aspects and the race weekend to the same exacting standards. The attempt to do so will only create a dilution of excellence elsewhere.

This isn’t to say Aston Martin have struggled this year because Newey was spread too thin. A ghost from Alonso’s past – Honda – played a very large part. Honda was reunited with Newey in name, but it now appears many from the Red Bull Honda days had moved on, believing Honda’s time in the sport had elapsed. What Lawrence Stroll made a deal with was a Honda F1 reboot, not the version responsible for Red Bull victories.

It wasn’t just a performance issue with Honda. The vibration was so bad from the integration between engine, battery mounting, gearbox and transmission that Lance Stroll and Alonso limited their running time in the car to avoid permanent injury. But Alonso has been living with the curse for so long, not even this rattled him. The 2017 Honda engine at McLaren suffered from vibration issues. These resonance issues would induce electrical faults after shaking components beyond their finite life. The 2026 sequel was all that and more.

Alonso has largely taken it in his stride. He speaks of being at peace with his career, his achievements. It would be wrong to disbelieve him. Age brings about calmness and reflection. It only becomes a problem for a driver when it dampens down the fire too much. For Alonso, there are signs it still burns fierce. He spoke before the season that he’d be more inclined to carry on if the 2026 car wasn’t perfect, if there was still a challenge. His career choices have led him into situations where victories don’t come with trophies, but achieving the impossible in flawed machinery. 

He still faces that challenge at Aston Martin.

But he also knows time is starting to run out for one last taste of victory. When he declared the Barcelona Grand Prix could be his last, it revealed he is uncertain when he’ll call time on his career. A new contract with Aston Martin has yet to be agreed and his old friend at Alpine, Flavio Briatore, has been linked with recruiting Alonso.

It has all the ingredients for one final, poorly timed, Alonso move. On paper, Alpine may make some sort of sense. They’ll be using Mercedes power in 2027 and that currently looks like the most tempting engine bet on the grid. The team has a big new title sponsor: Gucci. Alonso and Gucci go well together. 

All the signals also align with fulfilling the final phase of The Curse.

He would be leaving Aston Martin at the exact moment a true Newey car is unleashed on the grid. This year’s variant is part-Newey, with Newey himself split into too many parts. The 2027 car is supposedly all Newey. Who wouldn’t want to get behind the steering wheel of that?

We’ll find out if Alonso rolls the dice one last time and finally gets a good hand. There is no perfect choice. A Newey design doesn’t guarantee a title. Lewis Hamilton’s haul attests to that. But being in one certainly improves your chances. Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Mika Häkkinen all won multiple world titles in a Newey car. Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all took one apiece for Williams. Having Newey design the car gives a driver a strong hand.

Those four Williams titles highlight an Aston Martin trait that appealed to Newey and could convince Alonso to stay. Lawrence Stroll is seen by Newey as a genuine throwback. He’s seen as an active owner, in the style of Frank Williams. Stroll is giving Newey the keys to the kingdom but he’s not an absent, faceless money man. Alonso has a good relationship with Briatore so there’s a romanticised version where he has one last Enstone chapter.  

Whatever he chooses next, it won’t be for “the challenge”. Being at the back of the grid for the whole of 2026 is challenging enough. It will be where he thinks – on the balance of probability – he stands the best chance of seeing a race win again. His options are clear: Mercedes power versus Newey design.

It’s the sort of decision that comes down to a coin toss. A 50/50. Within that choice is another factor that could swing the pendulum back to Aston Martin. At Alpine, he would likely be paired with Pierre Gasly. That would be a notable step up from Lance Stroll. Suddenly, he could be facing the George Russell dilemma: fight for a drive in the fastest car (not that the Alpine is expected to be this, but it will have the best engine) only to be outperformed by your team mate.

If Newey delivers a race-winning Aston Martin, it will be Fernando, not Lance, claiming those wins. If the Alpine becomes competitive, it’s plausible Gasly reveals the effects of Father Time on Alonso.

Which turns the 50/50 choice into a three-way split.

He could retire. After years of unfortunate timing in the transfer market, he may well decide he can’t face the prospect of another long year of uncertainty – or worse – watching the car he could have been in outperform the one he chose every race weekend.

Of the three choices, retirement is the one this writer fears most. Alonso has a claim to be the best driver of his generation. He’s now with the best designer in the history of the sport. It would be a shame not to see how it plays out. Even if the progress is slow to start, a Newey car with some Fernando DNA sounds like something worth sticking around for. It seems almost impossible the results wouldn’t eventually follow.

Curses can be lifted. Newey could well be the man to perform an exorcism. If it’s just poor timing and coincidence, probability states he has to make the right choice at some point.

If it’s just good old-fashioned luck, he’s due a bit before he hangs up his helmet.

I Can’t Breathe

I Can’t Breathe

Henry Nowak was a promising young 18-year-old man who was brutally murdered. Described as “kind, intelligent and talented”. His life was taken in a senseless, violent act. His murderer falsely accused Henry of racism to the police attending the scene. Their subsequent inaction – based on this accusation – condemned Henry to dying in handcuffs while repeating the words: I can’t breathe.

Those same words had been spoken by a man in police detention before. Famously by George Floyd, whose subsequent death during a police arrest led to mass protests – riots – politicians taking the knee. A movement whose core voice was also its name: Black Lives Matter. Anyone, from any race, colour or creed, asking parity for all lives had missed the point.

George Floyd, BLM, taking the knee — civil revolt, they are all by-products of their time and environment.

The treatment of Henry Nowak, the lack of reaction by the general public, the coverage by the mainstream media, and the juxtaposition of deafening silence by people – such as Keir Starmer – as details emerged, compared to the furore in the days following Floyd’s death, show that not only do we live in different times, but that there are different standards applied depending on race.

Instead of people pulling down statues, the wool is being pulled down over eyes and ears.

It is right to call for calm. To avoid using this tragic moment for further hate or political gain. Henry’s father, Mark Nowak, exemplified strength and dignity as he made a speech following the verdict. He said the family didn’t want Henry’s death to cause further division, hatred or tension.

It gave this writer pause before putting words to page.

Division. Hatred. Rising tensions.

All key ingredients for creating the sort of environment where innocent people die in the care of those expected to protect and to serve.

It’s only possible to find hope, love, and understanding through difficult conversations and hard choices.

Vickrum Digwa stabbed Henry five times with a religious ceremonial dagger, known as a kirpan. It is part of the Sikh religious code for believers to carry one. There are accepted alternatives to carrying a full dagger but under UK law, as long as the kirpan is being carried for religious practice, it is not illegal.

Understandably, the legality of carrying a weapon – albeit, purely as a religious artefact – has now come under scrutiny. Some of this will be from dissenting voices distrustful of any outsider faith, others from a place of logic and fairness. It should be noted Sikhs in the UK have a lower crime rate than other demographics while being disproportionately vulnerable to religious and racial hate crimes.

The actions of Vickrum Digwa shouldn’t drag an entire community into the firing line. The murder was the action of an evil individual who had been barred from a Gurdwara for his conduct. He is not reflective of Sikhism, which calls for equality of all mankind, honest conduct, and striving for justice.

Following the case, it is clear Digwa was a despicable human and a non-practising Sikh.

One bad example shouldn’t create division among different people and cultures.

However, if something can go wrong once, to the degree an innocent young man loses his life, every preventable action should be taken to stop it happening again. Blasphemy laws have been abolished in the UK. A step that is seen to modernise society. But to the side of this, certain religions have exemptions. These run counter to the clean worldview a post-blasphemy law country should look like.

No exemption should exist for any faith to carry what would otherwise be illegal.

The laws of the land should not bow to practices and beliefs from elsewhere. It has allowed one bad actor to find a loophole and carry out a heinous act. One time is one too many and it could inspire others to deliberately look for other ways to circumvent laws under the guise of religious freedom.

Creating exemptions – loopholes – is two-tier justice. There have been accusations of two-tier policing. Details that have emerged around police training suggest there has been an over-correction that has led police forces in the UK to be more concerned with appearing racist than acting without prejudice.

Henry Nowak said nine times that he couldn’t breathe.

He told them he’d been stabbed.

One officer replied: “I don’t think you have, mate.”

Of course he had been. Fatally. And the inadequate police inspection for any wounds was only part of the treatment – which Henry’s family described as “inhumane and degrading” – by the police which meant in the last moments of his life, he died without hope, in blind panic.

There was bias – how unconscious or deliberate, you can decide – with both George Floyd and Henry Nowak which led to their respective deaths.

For George Floyd, the attending police officer reacted with bias created because he believed the man in question was a threat and acted with inappropriate force.

Henry Nowak was the victim of a different fear: institutional terror of being seen as racist. To such a degree that an accusation of racism took operational priority over the duty of care to a dying victim.

Even as the details emerged, the power of racism drove the narrative and the media’s acknowledgement of the incident.

Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, which may have contributed to his death, while not being the cause. He didn’t comply with the arresting officers. But the story became charged. His death at the hands of law enforcement created a storm that travelled across the Atlantic, creating a watershed moment.

Nowak had less alcohol in his system than the UK drink driving limit. He had been falsely accused of being drunk, abusive and racist. He pleaded with the police for help, while being compliant with unnecessary handcuffing. While the key difference between the deaths – the police didn’t murder Nowak, Digwa did – the police in both instances acted on assumption and feeling. Fear without evidence.

The backlash has been subdued and gravitas of what such police behaviour represents downplayed by police commissioners and the Prime Minister.

George Floyd’s death was treated as a way to start the great exposé.

Henry Nowak’s has been met with an attempt to create a cover-up.

Some of the covering up is deliberate. It’s from the same agenda that created a world where being white means you can never be the victim of racism. It’s from a legacy media culture more comfortable exposing one kind of institutional prejudice than another. A Prime Minister who is aptly named Two-Tier Keir.

Some of it is so obtuse, it can only offend. Judge Mousley, when sentencing Digwa, started his minimum term at 15 years. In the UK, it is a mandatory life sentence of 25 years for murdering with a knife. Judge Mousley said Digwa hadn’t carried the murder weapon with the intention to use it. A non-Sikh would not be given this leniency if they’d been walking home from Argos with a new set of kitchen knives.

Judge Mousley added eight years (but removed two for “mitigating factors”) because Digwa “abused the privilege extended to Sikhs”. In doing so, reinforcing a two-tier view of the modern UK and protecting the sanctity of a religious exemption above the principle of equal law.

It is all indicative of an imbalance. But people’s rage has become colour-blind. Or worse, driven by the strongest virtue signal.

It is too insensitive to proclaim: White Lives Matter. But leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, said “every life matters”. Which falls very close to another phrase. Writing in 2020 about the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, I wrote: People using the counter chant All Lives Matter, haven’t understood the core issues. It’s a big part of their privilege, believing a universal view is the fix for isolated problems they’ll never face.

It hasn’t aged well. We’re all facing different issues but they are by-products of the same misguided ideology. There is a universal fix: stop the overcorrection, the fear of being seen as something you are not, create a truly equal and fair society.

If your anti-racism, policing concerns, civil-liberty principles, rage against the establishment, or human-rights activism only activate for some victims, you are not seeking fairness or justice. They are nothing more than pliable and malleable principles shaped around misguided loyalty to causes only wearing justice’s clothing to cover harmful agendas.

Justice is when all lives are afforded the same set of rules and are judged through the same lens. No exceptions. No excuses.

Pep Guardiola: The Game-Changer

Pep Guardiola: The Game-Changer

Pep Guardiola’s arrival in England was surrounded by expectation and hyperbole from both rivals and supporters of Manchester City. Weighed down by an enviable record of success and a ready-made list of issues for detractors. For every achievement, a negative take. For every possibility, a reason why it couldn’t work. Not with the style of the Premier League. Not with the way we do things in this country.

It’s easy to forget now how the naysayers swelled in numbers by the end of his first season at City. Some of the most vocal wore sky blue and became ever more nostalgic for more recent managers. There was a vibe that Bobby Manc got City in a way Pep couldn’t. He was too stubborn. His brand of football couldn’t work in the Premier League. Third place and some telling defeats. Replacing the much-loved Joe Hart with Claudio Bravo because the new ‘keeper could play out from the back. Unfortunately, he spent too much time retrieving the ball from the back of his net. Hart had been offered to stay on, develop, but knew the writing was on the wall.

What no one appreciated – and it was demonstrated many times with multiple players – it takes time for people to adapt to Pep’s method. To understand what he needs. To implement the change and grow into it. Season one was not a mini-failure, it was an excavation. Discovering the elements that he could use for the new football he was bringing.

Any style of football can be called out in a reductive fashion. To say City played with a high line and were always vulnerable, that playing out from the back was risky and boring, is an oversimplification. It misses the minutiae that goes on to make Treble Winners, Centurions, Four-in-a-Row Titles, and twenty trophies in ten years. 

But people can be forgiven for losing faith and after the first year in the Premier League, the voices claiming his style wouldn’t work in England started to sound more plausible. Or at the very least, they may have had a point. What those people didn’t appreciate was the Guardiola process. His method. The immediate understanding and absorption of information, the meticulous attention to all possible solutions, the never-ending crafting of the final product. It takes players time to get on Pep’s wavelength.

Notably more players left the Etihad in his first season than were recruited. Of those, only John Stones and İlkay Gündogan had notable sustained careers. Both became better players under Pep’s instruction.

The second season was a concentrated net spend of £200M. Ederson erased the Bravo blot on Pep’s record. Benjamin Mendy and Kyle Walker solved the full back issue. The now irreplaceable Bernardo Silva joined Mendy from Monaco (thankfully, he didn’t join him at parties) and the students from the previous season saw all the pieces fall into place.

How do you silence the naysayers from twelve months previous?

Become The Centurions.

Suddenly no one was mocking about being “tippy tappy”. It wasn’t boring. 100 points in a single season can never be understated. Nor can 106 league goals. It was proof that Guardiola’s philosophy could work on these shores. And with it, a seed was planted. Where there was once doubt, there were open minds.

As the (full) saying goes: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Slowly at first – then so quickly teams from League Two to Sunday League were trying it – everyone was trying to play from the back. High defensive lines were okay. Goalkeepers, even Dave from the Dog and Duck, were being turned into ball playing sweeper-keepers. With varying degrees of success.

The greatest teams of all time never exist in isolation. To raise levels, you need a worthy opponent. Someone who appears relentless in their pursuit as you stand on top of the mountain. One iteration of Pep’s City teams is the best Premier League side of all time. The debate is which team from which season. This wouldn’t be the case without Klopp’s Liverpool.

The Merseyside club under the German raised the bar higher than had been seen before in England. Jürgen’s Heavy Metal Football was seen as the antidote to Pep’s patient possession. They hit 97 points in the 2018-19 season. Good enough to win the league any normal year.

Except, Liverpool were up against a team that was anything but ordinary. City won the final fourteen league games, finishing on 98 points. It revealed the resilience and ruthlessness that was installed into the club’s DNA. This became the new Typical City.

Not before a reset was required.

In his first three seasons, Pep could be seen as a Missionary for his style of play. The Centurions and the run-in with Liverpool delivered his gospel. What followed were the years where he became a true controller. His previous managerial stints had been short in nature. After finishing a point above Liverpool, he surrendered the title to Klopp the following year.

It was a true transitional phase. Not just the loss of Vincent Kompany – immortalised forever, signing off with the goal against Leicester the previous season – but David Silva’s last year in a City shirt. Cancelo was recruited and so was a player called Rodri.

It was the year Covid changed the world and football didn’t escape. One where the sharp focus on City in the Champions League was harsher than ever. If you can’t fairly criticise what Guardiola has achieved, the only avenue left is to remind everyone what he hasn’t done. The defeat to Lyon – a Champions League game played over one leg because of Covid – drove the new narrative: he’s too clever for his own good.

But equally, because of the league performance, not that clever because he’d been worked out. This time, his style wouldn’t work in England. Yeah, yeah, people jumped the gun after the first season and called it too early. Then there was The Centurions and pipping Liverpool. But this time, really, no doubts: Pep was cooked and out of his depth. 

So he went on to win four Premier League titles in a row. An accomplishment never seen before in England.

Transition became a state of permanent flux. If anyone thought they could solve Pep, he was already dreaming up the next system. He’s playing 4D chess while everyone else is learning tic-tac-toe.

Managers who thought they knew City patterns were faced with a colder machine. When it looked like City desperately required a striker, Pep won the league with a false 9. People spending time working out that conundrum looked up to see the most un-Pep player in Erling Haaland sign with the club. Suddenly, City are more direct.

The Missionary became The Great Adapter. 

He picked up a domestic treble in the process — first English club to do so. The Holy Grail of the Champions League was secured — as part of a Premier League and FA Cup treble. It makes City the only English side to win the Continental Treble (Premier League, FA Cup, and European Cup) as the reigning champions of England. A FIFA Club World Cup, a Super Cup, what felt like an annual League Cup. The trophies became synonymous with the pairing of Pep and City.

Kevin De Bruyne became arguably the best in the world as he peaked. Rodri recognised as such when he won the Ballon d’Or.

Those who said Pep’s football was boring when he arrived, were now just bored of watching him dominate English football.

When it’s hard to argue with the results, detractors have turned to the low-hanging fruit. The most obvious being the financial spend, which neatly leads them to the 115 charges. The Covid season saw City initially found guilty by UEFA and subsequently cleared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Yes, there’s no doubt Pep has spent money when required.

It didn’t seem such a sin when Alex Ferguson signed Rio Ferdinand for £29.1M in 2002. Adjusted using CPI, that’s about £61.5M – but – football stands outside of regular inflation. The TV deal for the Premier League during that cycle was £1BN over three seasons. The clubs currently share a £6.7BN pot. Marc-Israel Guéhi seems like a real bargain.

Buying the league was romanticised when Jack Walker did it for Blackburn Rovers. The Eighties saw the decade start with Robson going to United for £1.5M and surging to £2.8M when Liverpool re-signed Ian Rush. Chris Waddle was sold to Marseille for £4.25M in 1989.

Going all the way back to 1905, Alf Common was signed for £1,000 — the first four-figure transfer fee. Aptly named because spending money in football has always been common. The results do vary wildly.

In the last five years, Manchester United’s net spend of £684.61M is the highest in the Premier League. Newly crowned champions Arsenal are second with £675.77M. Man City are down in seventh with £397.78M.

You need money for success, but money doesn’t guarantee success.

This is why the mudslinging isn’t reserved just for Pep’s transfer activity. The outstanding 115+ charges remain the default position for all detractors. Never have so many people been experts on a topic they’ve no insight into or sound understanding of. Regardless of the outcome, the club – and managers and players by association – will never be given due credit.

None of the negativity can change the argument about Guardiola’s influence. Children are now trained differently because of his arrival. Every level of the football pyramid has altered its play style because of one man’s vision and application. In his leaving statement, Pep spoke more elegantly and poetically than anything this writer can create for such a great man.

He gets Manchester and Manchester loves him. And his truth sits in plain sight when he speaks about the area. Mentioning the Industrial Revolution, and a city built from graft, it becomes the perfect summary for his time at the club. He has spearheaded a football revolution. It required hard work. The result is like the colour of the bricks he mentions — imperfect but resilient. Everything is the product of a massive progression forward. The results not always pretty but authentic and worthwhile.

He changed how a country views its national sport.

Guardiola arrived as a football missionary. He leaves a man changed by England, but not nearly as much as England was changed by him.