'Alonso needs to do more for F1'

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone says Renault's Fernando Alonso [Images] needs to put more back into the sport as world champion.

Ecclestone also had a dig at McLaren's Ron Dennis, the 24-year-old Spaniard's team boss next season, and suggested he should practise what he preaches after talking recently about the need to put more fun into Formula One.

"I'm concerned with Ron and his statements because he's the last person to do any of those things," Ecclestone told Britain's ITV television in an interview before Sunday's European Grand Prix.

"You can't get his drivers to talk to anybody and they never participate in anything.

"It would be great if he started doing what he's saying we should be doing. I think what he's saying (is what) everybody else should be doing except McLaren.

"Hopefully the teams and drivers will realise they have to give a little bit more back to the sport," he added.

Dennis told reporters at last month's San Marino Grand Prix that the sport needed to lighten up its image to attract a broader and younger audience.

"It's important that we think about humanising F1 and encouraging fun back into the sport," said Dennis. "We have to keep Formula One's mystique of course, but the drivers need to be more known."

Ecclestone, 75, has been deep in negotiations about the sport's commercial future after 2007 with carmakers threatening their own series unless their demands, including a far greater share of revenues, are met.

One of those carmakers is DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes, owners of 40 percent of McLaren.

"I'm a little bit guilty of things because I've been firefighting for two and a half years," said Ecclestone when asked about ways of improving Grand Prix weekends.

"We've had arguments with teams and manufacturers, we've had shareholders coming and going so I haven't really been able to do all the things I'd have liked to have done and should have done inside the sport.

"When we get all this out of the way, wait and see. There's all sorts of things we can come up with."

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