{"id":22514,"date":"2019-06-19T13:34:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T16:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/?p=22514"},"modified":"2019-06-19T13:34:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T16:34:45","slug":"idolatria-dos-franceses-por-ayrton-senna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/idolatria-dos-franceses-por-ayrton-senna\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayrton Senna is still idolized by the French"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The French F1 GP takes place this weekend, at Paul Ricard. Despite being Alain Prost\u2019s rival, Ayrton Senna was always treated with affection and is very admired by the French. A good example of that is Simon Pagenaud, who won the Indy 500 last month and even wore a #NoPulsoDoBRasil bracelet during the race, with the iconic colors of our champion\u2019s helmet.<\/p>\n<p>Five years ago, in the 2014 Indy 500, the French driver had already sported a helmet in honor of Senna, celebrating the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of Senna\u2019s legacy. In 2019, the driver went even further: besides wearing the bracelet with Senna\u2019s colors, he was gifted a Banco Nacional cap by a Brazilian journalist who had promised to give it to him if he won the race in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Simon Pagenaud sobre Ayrton Senna\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tYLQyXS_RPE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was four years old, Ayrton sparked my love of racing. He was racing against Alain Prost. It was \u201988. That was when he won his first championship.\u00a0He\u00a0started my desire for racing. Everything he said spoke to me so well. And everything he said made sense to me. Then, I started racing go-karts at eight years old\u201d, recalls<\/p>\n<p>Inspired by Senna\u2019s driving style, Pagenaud won in the rain at the start of May, when he dominated the Indianapolis GP at the road course of the legendary American raceway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always dreamt of being like Ayrton \u2013 he\u2019s my hero and you always want to be like your hero. I listened and watched his races in Donington, when he won there, in the rain\u201d, said Pagenaud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI try to emulate his driving style, to understand what he was doing differently to be so good. Maybe that helped me to win the last Grand Prix \u2013 we were untouchable in the rain, just like he was\u201d, tells Pagenaud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo this day, when I have a moment of doubt, I go back to my Senna movies, to his book, and videos of him, because the energy in everything he was talking about was exactly what I felt. He was a mythical driver, that, to me, was the God of Racing. So, thanks, Ayrton. I wouldn\u2019t be here without you\u201d, concluded the French driver.<\/p>\n<p>Off the track, when he was still racing, Senna was also warmly welcomed, in France.\u00a0 Ra\u00ed, a former soccer player and also an idol in France, fondly remembers a friendly match in 1994, pitting the Brazilian squad against PSG, in the ramp-up to the FIFA World Cup that would take place later that year.<\/p>\n<p>Senna kicked off the match and received a standing ovation from the French fans at the stadium. \u201cThe crowd\u2019s reaction \u2013 a football crowd \u2013 made it clear that he was much more than just a motor sports idol. It went way beyond any single sport thanks to his charisma and his achievements\u201d, Ra\u00ed told Senna TV.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The French F1 GP takes place this weekend, at Paul Ricard. Despite being Alain Prost\u2019s rival, Ayrton Senna was always treated with affection and is very admired by the French. A good example of that is Simon Pagenaud, who won the Indy 500 last month and even wore a #NoPulsoDoBRasil bracelet during the race, with [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,17,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias","category-novidades","category-senna-na-midia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}