In politics as in F-1, there are no such things as strokes of luck. You can have the pilot and his wise hands, the leader and his deep voice, but if you don't have the machine and the people who make a difference behind it, shaping the strategy, positioning and message on a schedule, there is nothing to do No one better than the two-time world champion, Fernando Alonso, to explain the truth of these premises: "I think that to win you have to have the vision and ambition... Opportunities are there for everyone, but only one team and their engineers are ready to do whatever it takes. And you know, I'm proud to be part of this organization." He knows what he's talking about. For the first time in 12 years Alonso has a competitive car. A year ago Aston Martin (AM) were last in the first race, today they are third only behind the two Red Bull (RB) drivers.
Next to him, RB's two-time world champion, Max Verstappen, nodded: “Yes, Fernando is absolutely right. I think that if you have the right people in charge, who really want to win and the contracts, anything is possible." AM signed engineer Dan Fallows from RB a year ago, and the car has been transformed into a racing behemoth. RB did exactly the same thing 17 years ago when they signed Adrian Newey, the most awarded engineer for his avant-garde single-seaters. This is how Sebastián Vettel was four times champion with RB and how Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton two years ago, ending seven years of Mercedes dominance. There is no sport, science and art that resembles politics more than F-1. No driver is anyone without a great car behind them. And to win tenths in the car you need the talent of the engineers.
Driver, car and circuits, or something that is the same, elections. Every winning car always incorporates innovations that make a difference. In the case of the promising AM the determining concept is negative degradation (DN). Applied to political strategy, it is very interesting. The DN consists of reversing the classic relationship between tires and laps, that is to say, headlines, political content and the legislature that runs out. The natural tendency is that as the tire or message accumulates laps, its performance decreases and lap times increase, so it loses votes. In the AM, however, thanks to a devilish balance between fuel consumption and tire wear, Alonso goes faster and faster. A huge competitive advantage. As if you have an increasingly innovative message that is never flat or heavy.
In Spain, the figures have been frozen for months. The PP-Vox majority is not secure: 174 deputies. And after the municipal elections we know that whoever gets more than 140 seats will win the general elections. The match is so open that whoever has DN will have a chance. The DN will have 500,000 more votes. Without DN, the correlation of weaknesses prevails: the 129 seats and more than 7 million votes that the PP has today, with DN or 500,000 more votes in its tires, would prevent the re-election of the progressive Coalition.
If the PSOE, with 97 seats and 6 million votes, for its part, disposed of DN would consolidate above 100, waiting to add more than 140 deputies with the space to its left; Vox with 45 deputies and 3 million voters knows precisely that it needs to recover the 500,000 votes it has lost since 2019; and the purples with 29 deputies and 2.4 million voters, with DN they would be close to 3 million, and would leave the assault on the third position to a Sumar (powered by Podem) ready for candy. If they are third and Vox fourth, the Coalition is re-edited. 500,000 votes or DN. How to make this "miracle" of social engineering possible?
Dan Fallows and Adrian Newey know that designing a car that is stable, bounce-free, with DN, light on attack and fast in corners is always very difficult. In politics you need to build a message with the ability to progress to the end.
It's not so much about measuring the times voters breathe in the polls as it is about having moments that leave them breathless. A hint: the nation-state is back. It also helps not to make the most important political mistake in history: what we don't achieve is often within reach of the leap we don't make.
