Motorsport: Alonso also magic on the track

SAO PAULO - Fernando Alonso has a magic touch.

The 24-year-old Renault driver, crowned yesterday as Formula One's youngest world champion and Spain's first, loves to entertain friends and family with card tricks and sleight-of-hand.

Yesterday his third for Renault in the Brazilian Grand Prix was enough to give him the title. McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya won the race for the second year in a row while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, the only man who could have put off Alonso's title celebrations, finished runner-up.

Alonso is also an accomplished mimic and passionate Real Madrid soccer supporter, now as famous to Spaniards as any of their multimillionaire "galactico" players.

Yet there is nothing flash or brash about the softly-spoken Alonso, who prefers a quiet life mingling with students in the English university town of Oxford to basking in the media spotlight in his home country.

"I get recognised maybe once a month ... I go to the supermarket, I go to buy the newspaper and I can be there with friends," he said.

"In Spain I have people in front of the house, so it's impossible."

On the track, the shy and diffident young man is transformed into an aggressive and determined racer who is relentlessly quick.

Much as Michael Schumacher triggered Schumi-mania in Germany, Alonso has awakened Spain to Formula One.

Managed by Italian Flavio Briatore, the Renault team boss who oversaw Schumacher's first two titles with Benetton in 1994 and 1995, Alonso has not so much come of age this year as surpassed his years.

Since March and the second race of the season in Malaysia, Alonso has led the championship with a rare maturity and self-confidence.

Already the youngest driver to start a grand prix on pole position and the youngest race winner, both feats achieved in his first season with Renault in 2003, Alonso has won without having the fastest car.

What the Oviedo driver did do was to rack up the early points while McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen suffered reliability problems. By the time they sorted themselves out, it was too late.

Alonso has made just one big mistake, hitting the wall in Canada while leading. Otherwise, his driving has been a model of consistency.

"Fernando does give this incredible impression of being laid back and sometimes you wonder whether he is actually paying attention almost," says Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds, who also worked with Ayrton Senna and Schumacher.

"But he is. He takes everything in and you can tell from his questions that he's actually listened to every word. It doesn't necessarily come over to people."

The champion's career started at the age of 3. His father had made a kart for Alonso's older sister, which she spurned, and by the age of 13 Fernando was a Spanish champion. The world junior kart title followed.

In 2001, while contracted to Renault, the Spaniard made his Formula One debut with Minardi and was soon going places.

Said Minardi's boss, Paul Stoddart: "Fernando's got more natural talent than I've ever seen in the drivers I've come across."

Fernando Alonso

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 24
Born: July 29, 1981 (Oviedo, Spain).
Lives: Oxford, England.
Grand prix starts: 67 (not including 2005 US Grand Prix).
Pole positions: 8.
Wins: 7.
Grand Prix debut: Australia 2001 (Minardi).
First podium: Malaysia 2003.
First pole: Malaysia 2003.
First win: Hungary 2003.

- REUTERS