Formula One: Ecclestone Off Track As Alonso Feeds Frenzy

Fernando Alonso has come a long way since he hung around the Renault team kitchens four years ago helping the chef make pizzas on the Friday before the Spanish grand prix.

In 2002 the bubbly kid from Oviedo was the team's test and reserve driver, twiddling his thumbs, frustrated at being on the sidelines. Yesterday Alonso returned to the Circuit de Catalunya to start the preparations for his first home grand prix since he became the sport's youngest world champion.

He has no choice but to field the pressures that come with international superstardom, with everybody in the business seemingly jostling for a slice of his time and attention, but there is an attractive reticence about Alonso. He continues to live in Oxford, in a close-knit motor racing community which includes the Renault test driver Heikki Kovalainen and the promising GP2 contender Nicolas Lapierre, revelling in the comparative anonymity he is fortunate to enjoy in the university city.

His low-key lifestyle prompted Bernie Ecclestone, the formula one commercial rights holder, to include him in a critique of drivers and teams who do not do enough to promote formula one. This put him on the back foot as he arrived in Barcelona, but he responded robustly to Ecclestone's opinion.

"I don't know what Bernie means," he said. "I have a team that pays me to do my job. I go testing, I go to promotional events and I have my sponsors. I go to my obligations, I race and this is my job. I don't know what more I have to do. I do everything in my contract that I have to."

Alonso, 24, certainly cannot be accused of stinting when it came to promoting his home race in the run-up to the event. The week started for him on Wednesday in Madrid with a Telefónica-Renault Spain appearance day on safety. He travelled to Barcelona that night and on Thursday he attended the official pre-meeting FIA press conference, where 10 out of 16 questions were addressed to him, followed by Spanish Media Call with 25 reporters.

Then he greeted the fans in the pit lane and moved on to unveil his commemorative plaque on the Champions' Walk behind the main grandstand. Other plaques celebrate world champions from bikes and formula one including Mick Doohan, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Nigel Mansell. The ceremony was hosted by the Catalan prime minister and Alonso made a short speech, with fans hanging from the platforms at the back of the main stand and chanting "Aloonso."

From this morning the Renault team will be attempting to shield Alonso from the media pressure despite interest running at such a high level that the team are having to find extra space in their biggest paddock motorhome to accommodate the journalists attending the daily briefings. In addition Renault have more than 800 paddock-club guests attending the race over the weekend and, with their sponsor Telefónica also the title sponsor of the grand prix, Alonso will have to make space in his schedule for another round of meeting and greeting.

The frenzy will not stop even after the chequered flag has fallen at the end of tomorrow's race. Next Sunday he is scheduled to drive one of last year's Renault R25s in a demonstration through the streets of Seville, when up to half a million fans are expected.

Above all Alonso, who set third fastest time in yesterday's free-practice session, wants to win his home grand prix in the role of reigning world champion, to go one better than his 2005 second place to Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren.

"Last year I think it was not quite so important for me, because I was so focused on the championship and just wanted to win races - it didn't matter which ones," he said. "This season is a bit different. Of course I am fighting hard for the title, but now it is true that, if I had to pick two or three races in the year that I definitely want to win, then Barcelona is one of them."