Alonso still as hungry as ever, says De la Rosa

Fernando Alonso has been the talk of Formula One since he put Aston Martin on the podium at the Bahrain season-opener but old friend and former rival Pedro de la Rosa says nobody should be surprised by how quick and competitive he is.

The Spaniard has been racing his double world champion compatriot since 2001 - first in Formula One and then for fun in go-karts - and says Alonso's will to win is as fierce as ever.

"What really impresses me about Fernando is the fact that he’s 41 and he’s exactly the same Fernando with the same hunger as I met in 2007," De la Rosa, who now has an ambassadorial role at Aston Martin, told Reuters ahead of Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

"There’s no difference whatsoever in his approach, how hard he’s working and how hard he’s trying and pushing everyone.

"Physically he’s young, he’s been taking care of himself and he’s pushing incredibly hard in every little detail - not only on the car, on the team, but also physically on his training regime, on his diet. He’s a very complete athlete."

De la Rosa was test driver at McLaren in 2007, when Alonso joined from Renault as champion and Lewis Hamilton came on board as a rookie, and they worked together at Ferrari after that.

Back in 2001 the now 52-year-old was with Jaguar when Alonso debuted at Minardi.

De la Rosa said, in an interview organised by the team's non-alcoholic beer partner Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0 per cent, that even in uncompetitive cars Alonso had kept pushing as if chasing the title.

"It’s the fact that he hasn’t thrown in the towel at all ... he didn’t need to see the carrot of the podium to be 100 per cent," he said.

"He was always giving 100 per cent even if he was fighting as a double world champion for 15th position."

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