He’s still kind of like that. He’s a shy, reserved guy, who wants to lead life as normal as possible and sometimes this makes him seem detached or even “rude”. But when he’s with friends, with people who really know him, he’s different, trust me.
Take the last times he came to race in Lonato, for instance. We’d gotten the ball rolling a year before: we met up at a race event and Fernando told me he was hoping to spend a full day karting and asked if I could get something organized. To be honest, at the time I thought it was just one of those things friends say, but that we’d never really get around to it. Instead, he called me out of the blue a few days before the practice for the F1 in Jerez. We were testing in Lonato and when I told him, he replied: “Ok, see you there”. Two days later, there he was. When he arrived, he called up Kubica to see of he’d like to join him. Said, done. We barely had time to get the kart ready and they were both out on track. I don’t know how many other guys of their caliber would’ve done the same: race on a crowded track, like your average Sunday karter… I’d told him that with a little extra time, I could’ve organized something more private. Know what he’d replied? “But it’s no fun if there’s nobody on track!” That’s Fernando Alonso for you!