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Alonso hits out at Spanish media
Spanish F1 hero Fernando Alonso slammed the country's "low-quality" press. He is apparently being hounded by the media.
For Fernando Alonso, the honeymoon may be over, but he is still smiling.
After three wins in four races, the 23-year-old Spaniard, who has taken over as heir-apparent to seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher, has run into his first serious problems with his own national media.
On Thursday, at the conclusion of a long news conference at the Circuit de Catalunya, much of which focused on the pressure he faces now he is feted as one of Spain's leading sportsmen, Alonso said that Spain had a low-quality press.
"Sometimes there is too much news on the private life and not enough on the sporting life," the early leader of this year's world title race told reporters.
"But this is Spain and, probably, we have a bad quality of press."
Alonso, who has 36 points after four races, was reacting to the way in which the Spanish media had represented his comments about Schumacher and his Ferrari team and other recent stories about his love life.
Several Spanish newspapers ran features earlier this week about one of Alonso's former girlfriends, reporting that he was still allegedly in contact with her despite now having a steady Catalan girlfriend, whose family is from Barcelona.
After arriving here on Wednesday from his current working home in Oxford, in England, he was reported as describing Schumacher's Ferrari team as 'cheats', but on Thursday softened this by explaining the ambiguity of certain Spanish words when translated into English.
"I think we have all said Ferrari has done more testing than everyone else and we all know that," he said.
"But, for me, it is very surprising that yesterday I said that and today there has been a revolution in the press! But you know it is no problem. I think we all know, all the teams, we agreed to limit the testing days and they (Ferrari) are the only one that does more.
"They are all allowed because anyone can do what they want, but I think it is against the spirit of the sport and against the future for all of us.
"In Spanish, the word is 'trampar', which means both cheating and not fair, not fair play. And it is the same word. In this instance, I meant not fair play. I meant against the spirit of Formula One."
There were not too many heads nodding in agreement among the Spanish media for whom Alonso, the first Spaniard to win a Grand Prix, is their first motor racing star.
His success has brought him international fame and he is more remote from the Spanish media.
Asked on Thursday about his feelings on the eve of a race in which he is expected to be cheered on by 100,000 home fans at a sellout race, Alonso said: "Well, tomorrow we shall see a better picture for this Grand Prix in terms of the people and the support they give me.
"When I am in the car, I want to see the grandstands in a blue colour and it is motivating for me. Not in red. For this, I think to race in Spain every race is more motivation and it is better.
"But at the same time it is more difficult to walk on the street, to go to the hotel, to be in the traffic, stopped, because the buses stop and they go out and they ask for autographs and so on and so it is more difficult to move around here.
"But I am in England normally and, as I did this week, I relax and prepare there for the race and then arrive here at the last moment."
He admitted he was feeling the intensity of the support and the fervour, but he was not allowing it to get to him or to interrupt his preparations for the biggest race of his 55-race career.
