From ecstasy to agony; Fernando Alonso endured one of the most heart-wrenching turnarounds to what was tipped to be his best race weekend since the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix. It was indeed a brilliant start to the returning Canadian GP, as Alonso persistently placed his Alpine in the top 5 through all of the practice sessions.

Then arrived a crucial qualifying session where the Spaniard delivered an astounding display to clinch his first front-row start since the Ferrari days. However, little did he know of the pain that was lingering at the end of Sunday’s main race.

Alonso had all the tools to convert his impressive qualifying result into a decent race result. Unfortunately, Alpine’s questionable strategy cost the two-time world champion every bit of chance to secure a top-5 finish. Despite multiple VSC interruptions, the French outfit chose to keep Alonso out on dying medium tires during the first stint.

Watch Story: From Spice Girls to Earth Livery: Top 5 F1 Car Launches of All-Time

And it is safe to say that the pit-stop strategy kindled a string of twists and turns that ultimately hampered Alonso’s promising weekend. What’s more heart-breaking is that Alonso’s biggest target and arch-rival, Lewis Hamilton, sneaked his way onto the podium. As for the Spanish veteran, P7 was all he could accomplish.

Fernando Alonso hit with penalty post-Canadian GP

This is more like rubbing salt on the wound! Alonso showed visible frustrations after seeing off the Canadian GP in P7. But, unfortunately, the biggest disappointment of the weekend was yet to come. The stewards summoned Alonso for an alleged FIA sporting code breach.

Turns out, Alonso, in an attempt to defend his position against Valtteri Bottas, made multiple direction changes. “Between turns 10 and 12, on the penultimate lap of the race, car 14 made repeated changes of direction to defend against car 77 who had to lift at one point and briefly lost momentum,” the stewards’ notes read.

Hence, the stewards found Alonso guilty and imposed a 5-second time penalty on the Spaniard. End result? Alonso has now lost a couple of positions to Bottas and his teammate, Zhou Guanyu, and will settle for P9. What’s more, Alonso has also received a penalty point, pushing his current tally to 6.

Read More: Lewis Hamilton Sends F1 Twitter Into a Frenzy With Dazzling End to Canadian GP

Overall, this is clearly not the kind of finish Alonso would have hoped for in Montreal. But, well, the reality had other ideas as the 40-year-old leaves Canada with a rather unsatisfactory 2 championship points. So, will he make a comeback at Silverstone next weekend? Only time will tell.