Quiet man Alonso entertains

Formula One Spanish Grand Prix: In the early stages of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone took aim at local hero Fernando Alonso, claiming the sport's youngest ever world champion did not do enough to promote the sport. Alonso is, Ecclestone said, unco-operative and distant from the fans.

It is true. Alonso is a remote figure, increasingly at odds with his celebrity. He shies from the glare of publicity, hides from his public. In the paddock he often takes his seat at the very back of the Renault motorhome, often with his back to the door.

If he could wish for anything, he has said it would be to be away from what he describes as "this Formula One circus".

"Sometimes," he revealed this weekend, "I wish I had a cloak of invisibility, like Harry Potter's."

Put him on the track, however, and the mood instantly changes. The faint paranoia fades, the feelings of claustrophobia (his deepest fear) evaporate.

The shy, haunted Alonso is gone, replaced by a man who unabashedly screams his delight into the radio as he takes home victory, who careens in imitation of a matador as he leaps from the cockpit of his Renault in parc ferme, replaced by the smiling, effusive figure who yesterday claimed victory at the Spanish Grand Prix as the "best feeling I have ever had in a Formula One car, equal to when I won the championship in Brazil (last year)".

Yesterday's victory was the kind Alonso and his team managed so effortlessly last season. If there was any sense of destiny to the proceedings it was heightened by the renewed effort of the Renault team to respond to the threat of a resurgent Ferrari, for whom Michael Schumacher has won the past two races.

This time out Ferrari never stood a chance. All the right noises were made by Alonso regarding the danger posed by Schumacher, but behind it must have lurked the firm conviction that he had a car and a race strategy capable of dismissing Schumacher to the place to which he relegated him last year, off the top step of the podium.

It was apparent from qualifying. Alonso claimed pole, his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella joined him on the front row, and the Ferraris of Schumacher and Felipe Massa were dumped to row two.

Even on the grid though, Alonso was still wary, and as the lights went out to signal the start, Fisichella dived to his left while Alonso held onto the clean line, both stymieing any assault from the cars behind.

Fisichella, holding station in second, provided Alonso with the ideal platform. Less heavily fuelled than the Ferraris and with Fisichella providing the bulwark, Alonso streaked to 15 fastest laps from the first 17, metronomically shaving tenths off his times as his fuel load lightened. By the time he made his first stop he had more than 10 seconds in hand over Schumacher.

Ferrari though had gambled on a heavier load for Schumacher, and his ability, once Fisichella has stopped for tyres and fuel on lap 18, to scythe through the gap on a clear track.

It didn't happen, however. The German, freed of Fisichella, did up his pace, firing in quickest sector times, but Alonso's own pace was relentless.

The gap narrowed but only by a tiny margin, never approaching anything Schumacher could work with.

Presuming on the reliability of both cars, that was it: game over as the clock had just counted down the first third.

Barcelona's technical and demanding Circuit de Catalunya has the propensity to provide such a conclusion. It has long been the scene of either furiously competitive racing, usually dependent on rain, or funereal processions.

After Renault and Ferrari had shown their strategic hands in the first stop, there was nothing left to play for.

Alonso cruised home comfortably, followed by a chastened Schumacher with Fisichella third.

Massa took fourth followed by the leaden McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen and Honda's Jenson Button. The points positions were closed out by Button's team-mate Rubens Barrichello and BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld.

Not that the predictability of the order running toward the chequered flag in any way displeased the 130,000 fans who had flooded the circuit to cheer on their national hero.

Alonso is the biggest draw in Spanish sport at the moment. The organisers had yesterday shown the Chinese round of the MotoGP series on big screens around the circuit, anticipating fascination in a crowd that has always been crazy about motorcycle racing and lukewarm about Formula One. But they misread the mood.

While the Spaniard Daniel Pedrosa drew cheers with his win in MotoGP, the thunderous roar that filled the pit straight whenever Alonso did emerge from the garage was proof the Asturian 24-year-old is a superstar.

Pedrosa, Rafael Nadal, Sergio Garcia. Spain has a few high-flying young guns to shout about these days. But aside from perhaps Raul, none commands the adulation visited upon Alonso.

That is what appears to frighten him.

"I don't feel I'm special," he repeated this weekend.

With a 15-point lead over Schumacher and on course for a back-to-back championship win, 130,000 others clearly disagree.