ALONSO DRIVING A NEW POWER PUSH
Formula One legend and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso is both the brains and the brawn in a push to propel Aussie ace Will Power out of his IndyCar comfort zone and into two of the biggest sports car races in the world.
Alonso, who has been there and done that, has both a plan and the connections to take IndyCar champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Power to places he has never been before with the ultimate goal of winning the iconic Le Mans 24-Hour race.
In what may seem the most unlikely of motor sporting pairings, 43-year-olds Alonso and Power – who could qualify as the 'Golden Girls' of open-wheel racing – have joined forces to help not only prolong Power’s stay in IndyCars but take his already impressive career to new heights.
For the first time in his decades-long run, Power has enlisted a management company to engage in the negotiations over his new contract with Team Penske as his current agreement reaches its use-by date in December this year.
Sitting at the big table and crunching the numbers on behalf of Power, across from Team Penske racing boss Tim Cindric, will be former IndyCar racer Oriol Servia, the US representative of A14 Management.
A14 Management was co-founded and is co-owned by Alonso.
Apart from Power, drivers on the A14 books include Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto, who is about to graduate to grands prix with Sauber, and a swag of other young hopefuls including Clement Novalak, Chloe Chambers and Josep Maria 'Pepe' Martí, as well as sports car racer Daniel Juncadella and Formula E driver Maximilian Günther.
The word from within the Penske camp is not 'if' Power will be offered a new contract but 'when' it will eventually expire.
Aussie IndyCar fans should have no fear, as Team Penske won't be kicking Toowoomba’s favourite single-seater son – remember it's also home for Supercars champion Will Brown – out the door from its oppulent Mooresville headquarters any time soon.
Although Team Penske always has and always will remain tight lipped about driver contracts and potential line-up changes, the organisation is intensely loyal and obviously expects the same in return.
Owner Roger Penske and motorsport boss Cindric both use the pick-and-stick principle, which is why driver turnover within the team is rarer than a well-considered statement from Donald Trump.
Any contract extension beyond 2025 between Power and Penske will begin sometime within the first half of this year but, within the team, it is said the 'go or whoa' decision is in the hands of the driver.
“He’ll know himself (when his time has come),” is the word from within Penske.
“He almost won the championship last year, won three races and is still one of the fastest guys in a field not exactly lacking in top gun talent,” said one insider.
“Do you throw away years of well-proven record setting performance for a maybe if? Nah, no way.”
A quick look through the IndyCar statistics provides the proof of why Power is still regarded by many as 'da man'.
He is the GOAT when it comes to pole position starts with 70 to his credit. In his speedy wake you’ll find little-known names like Mario Andretti (67) and AJ Foyt (56).
Wins? Well, 44 isn’t a bad haul with only AJ (67), Scott Dixon (58) and Mario (52) ahead of Power on the all-time list.
How about podiums? Power has 105 of them, again the fourth best ever.
Those are some serious stats and when the sun shines bright Power’s shadow is immense.
But how did A14 get involved?
“They will be very beneficial with my future with IndyCar and other endeavors outside of IndyCar like the Daytona 24 Hours and Le Mans, which has always been a dream of mine to compete in," admits Power.
"Oriol Servia has been a long-time friend of mine and one of the best teammates I've ever had. Fernando Alonso is someone I've admired for a long time and have a huge amount of respect for all that he has accomplished.
“I think that the combination of Oriol and Fernando and the contacts they have couldn't be a better fit for me."
Power has, for many years, been an IndyCar-only driver. But now he realises, as father time marches on, the time has come to try other things - much like his new manager Alonso.
Don’t expect Power try to win the Monaco GP or blaze through the Saudi deserts in the Dakar, but he has a yearning to give sports car racing a big whack and who better than to steer him in the right direction than Le Mans and Daytona winner Alonso?
In 2023 Power was, in fact, due to make a start in the Daytona 24 Hour race when his wife Liz was hospitalised with a blood infection that got into her spinal column with life-threatening results. It’s not hard to know where his priorities were at the time.
So 2023 was a bad year for Power as he helped nurse his wife back to health while at the same time trying to remain competitive in IndyCars when, to be honest, his mind probably wasn’t in the game.
But last year he showed, without any shadow of a doubt, that he’s still a big dog in the IndyCar pound and still has lots of bite even though he doesn’t often bark.
Still, there are whispers and rumours that Team Penske is going to quietly shuffle him out the door or that he’ll retire and go away knit woolly cardigans sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch.
“They start these rumors or whatever, in the hope that they can take my seat,” Power smiles.
“But I'm staying here for a while. I'll get better every year, man. I get better every year.
"Ultimately, it's my results that count, and at the end of the day, if I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, and you're done. And I get that. But if that's not the case, and you're performing, then you'd be disappointed if they got rid of you.
“I'm going to keep going, man. That's all I ever do. I just focus on what I can control, and if you get results, it just makes everything easier."
It would seem, therefore, that the job of Alonso and his A14 Management team is not to try and keep Power in IndyCars, but to find a path that allows him to fufill his sports car ambitions.
Start thinking about the Chevrolet Corvette and GT3 and you may be on the right track, and Penske also fields front-line Porsches in IMSA and for Le Mans. But only Alonso and Power really know where the sports car track is headed, if it could be as early as this year. Maybe June, in France?
So how did A14 Management get its name you might ask. But even if you didn’t ask I’ll tell you anyway.
Well, Alonso races with the number 14 on his grand prix Aston Martin. You can see it pretty easily because the damn thing was so slow last year.
He chose #14 for F1 because he won his first karting world championship at the age of 14 on July 14 in a kart wearing the number 14. I’m not sure if Alonso is a superstitious person, but was that fate taping him on the shoulder or not?
Alonso created A14 Management a couple of years ago alongside co-founders Alberto Albilares, his personal manager for many years, and his former karting rival but close friend Albert Coll.
Until signing Power as its headline client, A14’s biggest name was Bortoleto. The rest of the A14 roster are mainly eager young up-and-comers.
Will Power is no up-and-comer and, like Alonso himself, is a racer and a survivor and still one of the best of all time. And Power time tooks to be far from over.
