From first wins to broken records: The five most dramatic Portuguese GPs in F1 history

In a somewhat surprising turn, Portugal will make a return to the Formula 1 calendar in 2027; the Algarve International Circuit (or Portimao, as it's more commonly known) has signed a deal to replace the out-going Zandvoort for 2027 and 2028.

Given F1's grand plans for expansion into global markets, with the likes of Thailand, Rwanda, and South Africa having been mentioned as prospective hosts for future grands prix, Portugal's return is almost out of left-field. It's nonetheless heartening to see a popular circuit back on the calendar; Portimao, of course, held races in the 'COVID years' of 2020 and 2021.

Portugal also held grands prix in the 1950s across the Boavista and Monsanto street courses, and then returned to the F1 calendar in 1984 with the undulating Estoril circuit. The track hosted its last grand prix in 1996, as the planned renovation works needed for Estoril to remain on the calendar for 1997 and 1998 were not carried out in time - and thus, the nation had to wait another 24 years for another race of its own.

To celebrate Portugal's return, it's only right that we fire up the time machine and take a whistle-stop tour through some of the nation's best grands prix...

1984: Prost takes victory - but loses title to Lauda by half a point

Lauda is crowned as 1984's champion - flanked by two future title winners

The all-McLaren title showdown at Estoril was contested by two drivers at the opposite ends of their F1 tenures: Alain Prost was in the early years of his vastly successful career, having returned to McLaren after a three-year spell with Renault, while Niki Lauda was in his third season with McLaren following his abrupt first retirement - and one year away from calling time for good. The two were evenly matched throughout the season; knowing how good Prost was, Lauda had been frosty towards the Frenchman's arrival at the start, but the two nonetheless formed a good-natured partnership that arguably urged both drivers into operating at their best.

Lauda began the race 3.5 points clear of Prost, and needed to finish second to be sure of clinching a third world title. Yet, qualifying had been disappointing; the Austrian only lined up 11th, while Prost sat on the front row behind pole-winner Nelson Piquet. Piquet's slow start would have greased Prost's path into the lead, had the faster-starting pair of Keke Rosberg (Williams) and Nigel Mansell (Lotus) not cannoned their way past into the first corner.

Prost scythed back past Mansell then, on the seventh lap, caught and passed Rosberg's rear-happy Williams. In the meantime, Lauda was making moves through the order with great urgency - per John Barnard, Estoril being "the one time I saw Niki just chuck everything at it and go for it big time". He followed Toleman's Stefan Johansson past the likes of Eddie Cheever, Patrick Tambay, and Derek Warwick, before finally dispatching the Swede on lap 27 to rise into the points. Michele Alboreto fell to Lauda's advances a lap later, with further passes on Rosberg on lap 31 and Ayrton Senna on lap 33 to bring Lauda back into the hunt.

The sticking point was Mansell, who was by now almost 40 seconds up the road. Although Lauda attempted to bring the gap down, getting to within 27 seconds of the Lotus as the race reached its second half, the charge had begun to abate; Mansell found a series of good laps to move the gap above 30 seconds. Yet, the championship picture changed dramatically as Mansell began to slow with brake failure - a legacy of a long dispute with Lotus team boss Peter Warr, who had denied Mansell the use of the team's sole set of larger brake pads in the Briton's last race with the team.

Lauda was thus promoted up to second, giving him the crucial half-point advantage he needed over Prost to seal his final championship win.

1985: Senna's wondrous wet-weather drive seals first F1 win

Senna dominated 1985's Estoril race in sometimes-horrific weather conditions

For its second time hosting an F1 world championship grand prix, Estoril was moved to April and scheduled after Brazil for an opening pair of Lusophone races. Thus, the spring-time weather precipitated a wet encounter in Portugal, which also birthed an F1 legend as Senna carved through the conditions to claim his first F1 win.

After leaving Toleman after one season, Senna had replaced the Williams-bound Mansell at Lotus and found himself with a competitive 97T chassis to hustle - a platform to showcase his burgeoning talent behind the wheel. He chalked up his first pole at Estoril, four-tenths clear of future rival Prost, and was comparatively more fleet of foot off the line as Prost ended up losing a place to Senna's team-mate Elio de Angelis.

Even though this was the first race that the 25-year-old Brazilian had properly led in F1, he was untouchable; after the first lap, he was already 2.5s up on de Angelis and left the Roman to contend with Prost and Alboreto behind him. His reputation for wet-weather excellence had already been built upon his performance in 1984's Monaco Grand Prix, and Estoril merely served as an extension of that.

As the conditions worsened, Senna waved his hands past the race control box in an attempt to get the race stopped, but those in charge were unmoved - even after Prost lost grip behind de Angelis and crashed into the wall along the start-finish straight. As the race continued, Senna lapped all but Alboreto as the race was timed out after 67 of the 70 scheduled laps - and at the chequered flag, Senna could barely contain his jubilation - two red gloves punching the air in celebration in spite of the horrendous conditions.

1989: Mansell's moments of magic - then madness

Mansell looked good value for his lead in Portugal...until he reversed in the pitlane

McLaren's increasingly terse championship battle between Prost and Senna had been a key topic of column inches across 1989, although Prost had managed to curate a 20-point lead over Senna with victory in Italy as the Brazilian's Honda V10 had cost him points at Monza. Although the Prost-Senna battle dominated the Portugal prelude, Ferrari rather inserted itself into the conversation at Estoril.

Senna had taken pole, aiming to reduce the damage to Prost in the championship, but was outmuscled by Ferrari's Gerhard Berger into the opening corner - and the Austrian gathered an early lead as Senna spent the early laps attempting to contain the other Prancing Horse; Mansell had been looking lively, and was aiming to contend for his third victory in Ferrari colours.

By the eighth lap, Senna's defence had been left in tatters as Mansell pulled out a move on the reigning champion, and then subsequently set about hacking away at Berger's lead. The moustachioed Briton had been nine seconds down on his team-mate, but soon threw together a flurry of swift lap times to eat into the arrears. On the 24th lap, Mansell then took his chance; Berger had been wrestling with traffic and, when boxed in by Warwick's Arrows, it left the door open for Mansell to dispatch the pair of them.

Now firmly running in second, Berger pushed his Goodyears to the end of their life before stopping on lap 34, with Mansell doing so five laps later. This was the point at which Mansell's efforts had been subject to self-sabotage; after over-shooting his pitbox, Mansell engaged reverse and backed into position - an illegal manoeuvre, worthy of disqualification.

Amid the scramble to rescue his stop, Mansell thus lost the lead to Berger and second to Senna, and ignored the black flag across the subsequent laps to put Senna back under scrutiny. After running in the McLaren's wheeltracks for four laps, Mansell threw a move on Senna at the start of the 49th lap but Senna refused to yield and the two came to contact. Berger thus clinched victory, untouched in the final throes of the race, while Mansell's move ensured Prost could add four points to his championship lead. Johansson, meanwhile, dragged his unfancied Onyx to a vastly unlikely podium.

1996: Villeneuve's title hopes kept alive with stunning Schumacher move

Villeneuve recovered from a poor start in Portugal to keep his title hopes alive

Jacques Villeneuve needed to outscore Damon Hill by four points at Estoril to ensure that the 1996 title race could be taken down to the wire at Suzuka, but the Canadian's hopes had looked grim after the opening lap. After starting alongside Hill, Villeneuve got bogged down off the line and was outdragged by the third-placed Jean Alesi; then, to compound his misery, he was then overlapped by Michael Schumacher on the outside into the first corner. Hill had two degrees of separation, but his early advantage did not stand the test of time.

After just 15 laps, Schumacher found himself having to contend with the lapped Minardi of Giovanni Lavaggi, whose unhurried approach to racing evoked then-BBC commentator Jonathan Palmer to exclaim that the Italian was "desperately slow" and "there because of his money". Lavaggi sapped Schumacher's momentum through the final corner at the close of the 16th lap, a long-radius 180-degree right-hander, which gave Villeneuve the opportunity to charge around the outside and steal Lavaggi's slipstream to complete the move for third.

When the first round of stops cycled out, Alesi dropped out of the top three (after a near-miss with the wall on his pit entry) and allowed Villeneuve to move up to second. The two Williams drivers were on three-stop strategies and had licence to go all-out, with Villeneuve now in swaggering form; after the Williams duo's second stops, Villeneuve slashed the gap to Hill to less than a second, but remained tucked up behind his team-mate's rear wing through the third stint.

Hill's third stop was, however, a leisurely affair; the 8.8-second wait ensured that Villeneuve had a shot at the lead if his final stop was any good - at eight seconds, the 0.8-second swing proved to be the clincher. As the Canadian emerged from the pitlane, his nose peeked ahead that of Hill on the pitlane exit, a slender advantage that he managed to preserve into the opening corner. Hill could scarcely keep in touch with Villeneuve over the remaining laps, locking in the 1995 Indy Car champion's win and ensuring that the title indeed went down to the final day.

2020: Hamilton sets new win record after thrilling start

Hamilton is elated - probably - after scoring his 92nd F1 win in Portugal

When Schumacher claimed his final F1 victory at the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix, he closed his account with 91 wins - a record that looked as though it would stand for generations. It took 14 years for that record to be broken; Lewis Hamilton triumphed in 2020's Portimao race to bring his total to 92 wins - but it wasn't exactly plain sailing at the start.

Hamilton had taken pole for F1's first race at the Algarve circuit, added to the calendar as F1 hastily pulled together a string of 17 races in a season derailed by the global coronavirus pandemic. He and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas attempted to pull away from the pack in a wild opening to the race, affected by early showers that ensured grip was at a premium.

After briefly losing a place to Max Verstappen too, Bottas managed to gather more heat into his medium tyres and dispatched both drivers, who were struggling for traction; Verstappen went wide, and later made contact with Sergio Perez's Racing Point, while Hamilton started to drop. McLaren's Carlos Sainz, who started on softs, then cut through them all and briefly wrested the lead from Bottas' control.

As the showers receded, the soft-tyre runners started to struggle. Bottas reclaimed the lead at the start of the sixth lap, and hoped to break away as Hamilton was stuck behind Sainz for another lap. The Finn held on for another 14 tours, but could not resist Hamilton's DRS assault into the first corner of the 20th lap. Having hugged the inside line, Bottas drew Hamilton into making a move around the outside - and from there, Hamilton could jet off into the distance to break an F1 record.

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