{"id":39621,"date":"2025-04-21T23:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39621\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T23:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:58:10","slug":"ayrton-senna-honored-by-portuguese-football-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39621\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayrton Senna honored by Portuguese football team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Portuguese football team honored the 40th anniversary of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/ayrton-senna\/1438\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ayrton Senna<\/a>\u2019s maiden Formula 1 victory with a special, one-off jersey in his signature colors. The late Brazilian legend celebrated his first Grand Prix win at the rainy 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, and to commemorate the occasion, GD Estoril Praia donned a unique uniform during their match Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fittingly, the club colors are yellow and blue \u2014 two of the three iconic colors from Senna\u2019s helmet. The special kit also included black and gold as a tribute to the legendary Lotus 97T in its famous John Player Special livery. However, the special edition kit didn\u2019t bring them much luck during their home league match against Sporting Braga. Estoril lost 0-2 to the favorites from the north of the country after conceding two early goals. In Portugal\u2019s top division, Braga currently sits in third place, while Estoril is in ninth.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The small coastal town west of Lisbon hosted the Portuguese Grand Prix from 1984 to 1996. At the time, large investments were made to boost tourism, and drivers appreciated the track on the inland plateau for its mild climate and unique charm. In 1985, however, the weather didn\u2019t cooperate and Senna stormed to victory by hosting a masterclass in the art of racing in the rain. All subsequent Grand Prix races in Estoril were then held in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ayrton-senna-lotus-97t-1.jpg\" alt=\"Ayrton Senna, Lotus 97T\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Ayrton Senna, Lotus 97T<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Motorsport Images<\/p>\n<p>Curiously, Senna\u2019s maiden win on April 21, 1985 \u2013 ahead of Michele Alboreto and Patrick Tambay \u2013 would remain his only victory in Portugal, despite 40 more Grand Prix victories throughout his storied career. Still, the small country became a second home for the F1 star. In addition to his apartment in Monte Carlo, Senna eventually owned a house in Quinta do Lago, located in the Algarve in the country\u2019s south. Due to the linguistic and culinary ties to his native Brazil, Senna felt particularly at home there.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Estoril, meanwhile, a memorial plaque at the circuit entrance in front of the main grandstand still commemorates Senna\u2019s special connection to the place of his first F1 triumph. And for now, that will likely remain the only tribute \u2013 because this latest Senna homage won\u2019t be making its way into fans\u2019 closets: reportedly due to licensing issues, the club was unable to offer the special kit for general sale \u2013 much to the disappointment of the fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read Also:<\/p>\n<p>In this article<\/p>\n<p>    Emily Selleck\n<\/p>\n<p>    Formula 1\n<\/p>\n<p>    Ayrton Senna\n<\/p>\n<p>Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n<p>    Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Portuguese football team honored the 40th anniversary of Ayrton Senna\u2019s maiden Formula 1 victory with a special,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4216,4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-39621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-ayrton-senna","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114378670594630544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}