Lotus celebrates 35th anniversary of Ayrton Senna's first F1 win

By CARSIFU | 22 April 2020


LONDON: It was 35 years ago today, in monsoon conditions, that a determined young Brazilian raced to his first Formula 1 victory and cemented his name in motorsport folklore.

It was Sunday 21 April and the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix. Behind the wheel of a Lotus 97T was Ayrton Senna, just turned 25 years old.

With the car at the absolute limit of its grip, he delivered a masterclass in wet-weather driving for the hardy Estoril crowd and powered to the chequered flag.

Such was his dominance he lapped the entire field up to second place, finishing over a minute ahead of his nearest competitor.

In just his second race for Lotus, Senna took the first of 41 career F1 victories – six for Lotus – and a legend was born.

The Estoril GP Podium 1985 (L-R) Michele Alboreto, Ayrton Senna, Patrick Tambay Credit_Classic Team Lotus


The performance stunned his rivals and lay down a marker that would see him go on to become a global sporting icon and a national hero in his native Brazil.

Despite his tragic death in 1994, he remains a racing legend. Sempre Senna (Senna Forever).

Today, Lotus is marking the occasion with an exclusive new podcast, a series of rarely seen classic archive images of Senna and his 97T race car from a private collection, and a new blog revealing insights into Senna the man and his time racing for Lotus.

Ayrton Senna Lotus 97T Credit_Classic Team Lotus


The podcast – part of the recently launched US LOT Sessions – features an all-new and exclusive interview with Chris Dinnage, Senna’s chief mechanic in 1985 and today the Team Manager at Classic Team Lotus.

Describing the raw emotion of the weekend and the Lotus that catapulted Senna to stardom, Dinnage says: “Ayrton hadn’t tested the car in the wet – that was the first time he’d driven in those conditions.

Estoril was when he really hit the scene, because people sat up and thought ‘hang on, he’s lapped almost everybody’ and we knew we had something pretty special.”

Dinnage adds it was this which made the difference between Ayrton and other drivers, explaining: “Ayrton had the same raw pace as everyone else, but he was only using 50% of his capacity as a human to drive the car at full speed, leaving him the other 50% to be really aware of everything that was going on around him. His concentration levels were unparalleled – I’ve never met anyone else like him.”

Today, the actual Lotus 97T in which Senna won at Estoril is owned and maintained by Classic Team Lotus. Like Lotus, it is based in Hethel, Norfolk, and uses a team of expert and knowledgeable designers, engineers and mechanics – including Chris Dinnage – to preserve classic Lotus F1 cars for their owners.

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