Alonso rejects Ecclestone criticism

Ecclestone, 75, said at the European Grand Prix last weekend that drivers should give more back to the sport and singled out the 24-year-old Spaniard as a champion "who doesn't do too much".

"I don't know what exactly Bernie means with that," Alonso told a news conference ahead of his home Spanish Grand Prix.

"I have a team that pay me to do my job, I go testing, I go to the promotional events, I have my sponsors, I go to my obligations, I race, I do my maximum and this is my job in Formula One.

"I don't know what more I have to do. There is nothing more in the contract that I have to do."

Spanish fans clamouring for a glimpse of their hero, who lives in the English university town of Oxford, could doubtless come up with a few suggestions.

Sunday's race is a 130,000 sell-out, a record for the circuit. Some were out chanting Alonso's name on Thursday when there were no cars running and most drivers had yet to arrive.

The main thing they ask is for Alonso to win, and that he hopes to do.

If the last race in Germany was coloured Ferrari red, Barcelona is Renault blue with Alonso's face smiling out from advertising billboards and cardboard cutouts all over the Catalan capital.

"It makes me feel strange, for sure," said the champion. "In the last two years everything grew up very quickly in Formula One (in Spain).

"Three years ago we had about half a million people watching on TV and now we have 10 or 12 million watching this race and it is a big change.

"I think Formula One now is a sport that everybody is talking about in the street, that everybody is aware of everything in the races and my image, or my face, you can see everywhere here.

"For me, it is a little bit strange, but I am not too often in Spain."