Alonso's ERS problem in Canada cost him "1 second a lap"
Fernando Alonso's Canadian GP was a painful one, experiencing a perfect storm of poor strategy and reliability problems that cost him the opportunity to finish in the top five.
Alonso's opening stint was very competitive, keeping Carlos Sainz company in third and staying ahead of Lewis Hamilton. An untimely VSC would compromise his afternoon, allowing Hamilton to gain significant time.
However, being kept out for such an extended period by Alpine was a far more detrimental problem in his race.
Even after the second VSC ended, Alonso still had a 20+ second gap that would allow him to comfortably stop and exit in P5, a result he would have surely converted.
In addition to this, Alonso was experiencing issues with clipping and ERS deployment, marking yet another Grand Prix where the Double World Champion was hampered by reliability, as he explained to the media post-race:
"We were unlucky, once more, with the VSC. I was just at the start-finish line when it came, and I was entering the pit when it ended, so we decided to stay out...
But the biggest problem to be honest was the engine, we had an engine problem in lap 20 or something like that and I was losing one second a lap with the energy deployment..."
The Spaniard's performances throughout the weekend in Montreal were undoubtedly impressive. Regardless, just as in Bahrain, Jeddah and Australia, engine problems cost Alonso significant points, making his 2022 campaign a far less fruitful one than it should be.
Alpine still secured strong points in Canada, significantly closing the gap to McLaren in the constructors' standings.
However, given that Alonso has lost a minimum of 20 points due to Alpine's own incompetency, it can be said that the French squad has already wasted several opportunities to comfortably secure P4 in the standings this year.