Everything changed. After a fascinating Saturday for Fernando Alonso in the rain in Montreal, the Alpine driver succumbed to sunny racing at the 2022 Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, crossing the finish line in seventh position, just behind his teammate.
The Spaniard made a good start and held on to second position until Carlos Sainz managed to overtake him, but lost more places after ignoring a Virtual Safety Car caused by the Mexican from Red Bull by staying on track on hard tyres.
When the time came for his stop, a few laps later Yuki Tsunoda overbraked at the exit of the pitlane and caused a physical Safety Car that affected the Spaniard’s race, as everyone entered the pits again, including him, and lost more positions.
Finally, Alonso failed to overtake Esteban Ocon and finished seventh, just 0.302 seconds ahead of Valtteri Bottas, who tried to overtake on the last straight and the Oventese had to defend himself by changing direction, which is why he received the call from the stewards .
As soon as he got out of his car, the Alpine driver revealed that a reliability problem in the Renault engine of his A522 took him away from a podium finish that seemed possible in the first laps of the race.
“It was a pretty good race in terms of pace, I think we could have fought for the podium, seeing that Hamilton is there and we were in front of him in a more or less controlled way, but from lap 20 we had a problem in the engine”.
“It was an energy issue that cut the ERS in the middle of the straights, more or less I lost eight tenths or a second per lap and to be on the DRS train with Ocon and Leclerc the truth is that in the corners I had to go to top and well, we kept a miraculous seventh position at the end”.
“Having this reliability problem just today, another engine problem in my car, it really hurts a lot,” Alonso added.
In reference to the VSCs in which he stayed on track, the Spaniard explained the reason.
“We didn’t have any luck there either, I was just passing the finish line and the VSC came out and just as I was returning to enter the pits, it was over. Luck was not on our side today, as usual,” Fernando Alonso concluded.
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522
