Speaking at the media tour in Charlotte, ahead of his Daytona 24 Hours debut this weekend in the NASCAR-owned IMSA series, Alonso admitted he's a fan of watching the Daytona 500.

"It's a race that is definitely one of the best, most iconic in the world," he told Motorsport.com.

"On the other hand, NASCAR is a very unique series where the driving technique is apart.

"The traffic management, the strategy you need to get, the draft, and the push, from one line to another – that kind of strategy is the biggest thing that I miss [from my skillset] if I race in NASCAR.

"I will need a lot of experience, a lot of years, probably that I don't have any more in my career right now.

"It's something it would be nice to test a NASCAR, to get the feel, and while you're driving you will know if you will enjoy racing there or not. From the outside I enjoy watching the races, but from the inside it's a very different thing."

When quizzed if he'd ever spoken to fellow F1 star Kimi Raikkonen about his NASCAR experience, Alonso said: "With Kimi it's quite difficult to talk about anything!

"Definitely not about NASCAR. A lot of respect, especially with Kimi."

Asked for his reaction to the amount of fan interest his exploits outside of F1 has generated, Alonso said: "I'm happy, I'm surprised, I'm proud of the fans that they are loving motorsport as much as I do.

"They see the effort that we are putting behind these races.

"For me in particular, at this time in my career, it would be easy to be at home, enjoying myself off-season. It's not the way I am.

"In the past two years, racing in iconic races, it's a lot of effort, there are no holidays anymore.

"I don't need to do this, but I'm doing it because I love it, and people see this extra effort, and they love and appreciate what we are doing."

Additional reporting by Edd Straw