Fernando Alonso: Blood, sweat...and gears - Motor Racing, Sport - The Independent

Fernando Alonso: Blood, sweat...and gears - Motor Racing, Sport - The Independent

Until his mid-teens Fernando Alonso was, to use his own words, "a bit chubby". "I was a typically well-fed Spanish child," he happily admits. Not any more.

Now Alonso, who turns 30 next week with two world championships and 27 race victories to his name, has the body/fat ratio of an Olympic runner, which is not altogether surprising as for an hour and a half tomorrow afternoon, when he pilots his Ferrari around the questioning curves of the Nürburgring, his heart will be racing at 170 beats per minute. That is the same as a marathon runner on completion of those 26 and a bit miles. For the Formula One driver, though, it is a marathon delivered at a sprint and it makes them athletes on a fitness par with any in the business.

"It is something that can't be seen from the outside," says Alonso. "It's difficult for people to understand how hard it is to complete 68 laps in Monaco, or to drive in Malaysia and Singapore with the heat and that terrible humidity.