In the summer of 2020, Fernando Alonso announced his return to Formula 1 at the hands of a team that he already knew very well after two different stages, Renault , which put all its hopes in the Spaniard to create a project that would be capable of fight for the world title.
However, repeated changes to the organization chart, in addition to the delay of the rules planned for 2021, caused the speech of the renowned Alpine to change a bit, acknowledging that they expected to be in contention for the title after 100 races, that is, between 2024 and 2025.
This has left the two-time world champion in a very complicated scenario, who assured on his return that the objective was to enjoy himself, and that all the successes that came would be welcome, such as his historic podium finish seven years later at the Qatar Grand Prix.
However, the Spaniard’s mentality is only about winning or, at least, getting the most out of the car he has, something he has shown every time he has gotten on the A522, but neither reliability nor luck , apart from some controversial decisions of the stewards, have played in his favor. For this reason, one must ask how many points he has lost and in what position he would be in the world championship if everything had smiled on him, since Alonso himself assures that there are about 60 units that he has missed, which would put him sixth with almost 90 points , well above the midfield and a relatively close distance from Lewis Hamilton.
In turn, if those 60 units that the Spaniard has lost to his team are added, Alpine would be the fourth best team in the constructors’ classification with a great advantage over McLaren, although far from Mercedes.
How many points has Fernando Alonso lost in the 2022 F1 season and where would he be in the drivers’ championship?
In the opening round of the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, Alonso finished ninth, behind his teammate, Esteban Ocon, but as he admitted, he suffered a lot with the tires from lap 11. In addition, he had problems with his car, which It didn’t offer all the power it should on the straights, but as it benefited from the double retirement of the Red Bulls, those two points would still be realistic despite the fact that it surely would have deserved more.
Just a week later, Saudi Arabia saw the first tense moment since arriving at Alpine, as he was involved in a fierce fight with Ocon, who almost sent him into the wall in the race. The two-time champion was running in seventh position when his engine said enough on lap 35, and in subsequent statements he was disappointed for “only having two points” after the first grand prix, where he should have scored at least 8 .
Although it was in Australia where Alonso took what was possibly the biggest setback so far this year, since in qualifying he was fighting close to pole position when a hydraulic problem sent him to the wall in the last sector of Melbourne . That performance could well have been worth a podium, which translates into another 15 points and an injection of motivation for the entire French structure, who had to settle for a poor 17th place after a lousy strategy.
Already in Imola, in the first weekend with the sprint format of the 2022 season, hope continued after knowing that they would introduce a new floor in the Spanish A522, and the illusion grew with the fifth position in the classification on Friday . However, the sprint race brought the Spaniard back to reality, who could not get past ninth position when his tires deteriorated.
On Sunday, in the main event, he went all out, but Mick Schumacher’s Haas shattered Alonso’s dreams of a comeback, who had to withdraw due to serious damage to the pontoon of his car. If everything had gone normally, considering that he was behind Valtteri Bottas, he could have finished in his wake, in a more than worthy sixth position, which would have given him another 8 points .
In Miami there was the first clash with the stewards and the FIA. During the race Alonso skipped one of the chicanes in the second sector, but the Spaniard assured that he had returned the time gained. The federation did not buy his speech, and after a test in which he was eighth, he fell out of the points zone by a few thousandths, losing four more points.
Determined to change the dynamics at home, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the Spaniard was eliminated at the first change in the classification due to poor traffic management in Q1 by his team. This caused some components to be changed in his power unit, which sent him to the back of the grid, but thanks to an incredible comeback, he was able to cross the finish line in ninth, something that could square with the performance of his car in Spain in not be because Ocon was seventh, losing another 4 units in the world ranking.
Arriving at a track where he already knows what it’s like to win, in Monaco, the Asturian forced the French car’s machinery too much in qualifying and ended up against the wall in his final attempt. Despite the fact that he said that “he could have done more”, he managed a seventh place that materialized in the race on Sunday, adding 6 points, but following his words, with an improvement of just one tenth and a half in his fastest lap on Saturday , would have started sixth, ahead of George Russell, and knowing how difficult it is to overtake in Monte Carlo, he could have contained the attacks of the Mercedes driver, as he did with Hamilton, thus letting another 2 possible points slip away.
In the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Alonso could have been seventh, a position that gives a booty of 6 units, which he added thanks to the Alpine’s good top speed and the few problems he encountered at the appointment in Baku, but, again , the controversy with the FIA reappeared on the scene .
In Canada he signed a brilliant second place in qualifying in the rain, and although he joked that he would attack Max Verstappen at the start, he was aware that his Alpine was far inferior. For this reason, an attempt was made to cling to Carlos Sainz’s DRS when the Ferrari driver passed him on the third lap, and thus managed to shoot in podium positions until a virtual safety car came out due to Sergio Pérez abandoning.
Neither of the two Spaniards took the opportunity to mount a new set of tires and they remained leading in what would be the second time that two Spanish drivers took the lead in a Formula 1 event, after Alonso himself and Pedro de la Rosa at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix. Hoping to pick the right moment, Alpine left the Spaniard on the track, losing several seconds per lap, which didn’t help when the Virtual Safety Car was redeployed and retired when trying to do his tire change.
As a result, the Spaniard fell to seventh position, in which he stayed until the end, fending off Bottas until the last lap, but moves too abrupt for the stewards caused him to be given a five-second penalty, dropping him to ninth. place, thus losing a guaranteed 6 points that would have been, possibly 15 with a podium if he had followed a correct strategy seeing his pace at the start of the race.
At Silverstone, where Formula 1 was born in 1950, Alonso wanted to make up for it, and he did so with a great fifth position in a weekend without any problem in which, in addition, he was able to celebrate the debut as winner of a compatriot, Sainz. Thus, 10 points were added to the Alpine rider’s locker, more than deserved.
Although only a few days later disaster struck for the French team, in Austria. In a very promising grand prix with the sprint race that allowed him to add extra points, Alonso suffered damage to his bottom in Friday’s classification, which would send him to ninth place, while his teammate achieved a juicy fifth position.
However, it was on Saturday that the height of bad luck arrived, since seconds before the start of the test, the Spanish’s Alpine did not start due to electrical problems, which would leave him unable to participate, letting escape, again, more points, which would have been 3 if he matched what Ocon did.
Already on Sunday, determined to come back for the umpteenth time, the two-time champion made his way up the grid to tenth place, the last one that awards points, but looking at the other side of the garage, Alonso lost another 9 points , since the Gallic driver crossed the finish line in fifth place.
The man from Oviedo would have been even closer had it not been for the mistake his team made at the pit stop when he was running seventh, as they did not tighten a nut properly and he was forced to go through the pitlane on the next lap, thus falling to the 14th place.
With all this, adding up, Fernando Alonso would have lost 64 points , an unrealistic figure since it would be necessary to take into account the units that his rivals would have lost due to the same circumstances, in addition to the fact that the analysis has been carried out with a positive approach to Alonzo. So, imagining that the Asturian added all that, he would clearly be sixth in the general classification with 93 points , more than 40 units ahead of his teammate, Esteban Ocon, and less than 20 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Meanwhile, Alpine would enjoy an income of 145 points , which would put them fourth in a very solid way, more than 60 behind McLaren, although with the first three very far, about 100 in the case of Mercedes.
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