As soon as they returned from the summer holidays, many were the drivers who changed the power units of their cars due to the great opportunities offered by the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, venue of the 2022 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix.
However, some teams preferred to extend the life of their engines and wait for the Italian Grand Prix, since the Monza circuit is one of the fastest on the calendar and has a large number of long straights that make overtaking easier. That was the case with Alpine, although the French only changed Esteban Ocon’s internal combustion engine (ICE).
This decision surprised a Fernando Alonso who recognized that he would have liked to penalize in one of those grand prix, instead of having to survive with an old unit that ended up causing two retirements in the last three races (Italian GP and Singapore GP) due to breakdowns .
After returning to the points in the chaotic race of the Japanese Grand Prix, Alonso has seen how Alpine has finally made the decision to mount a new internal combustion engine (ICE) in its A522, with which they hope to finish the season with an extra power.
This change will cause the Asturian driver to penalize five positions on the starting grid of the 2022 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, a minimum sanction that will require him to give his best this Saturday in the classification that will take place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. Other drivers, such as Sergio Pérez and Guanyu Zhou, will also be penalized for mounting a new engine.
Despite the fact that in recent races the #14 car has paid the price of having an older power unit than desired, Alonso already knows what it is to penalize and start from the back of the starting grid, since at the beginning of the season he had to change elements of his propeller on several occasions due to the different reliability problems he suffered and that cost him a large number of points.
At this time and with four races remaining to finish the 2022 Formula 1 season, Fernando Alonso is in ninth place in the drivers’ standings with 65 points, exactly behind Esteban Ocon, who has been able to add 78 units , which will obviously make what happens on those last few dates decide their internal battle.
