Nelson Piquet

Early life and career

Piquet was born 17 August 1952, in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, the son of Estácio Gonçalves Souto Maior (1913–1974), a Brazilian physician, and his housewife Clotilde Piquet (1920–2007), of French descent. His father moved his family to the new capital, Brasília, in 1960 and became Minister for Health in João Goulart's government (1961–1964). Piquet had two brothers, Alexis and Geraldo, and a sister Genusa. Piquet was the youngest of the children.

His father wanted Piquet to be a professional tennis player and was given a scholarship at a school in the United States, in Atlanta. Piquet started playing tennis at the age of 11. He won tournaments in Brazil and eventually took a trip to California to test his skill against tougher American players. During his time, he had learned to speak English and greatly matured. His short tennis career saw Piquet to be prized as a good player but not thought sufficiently exciting for the sport, which led him to devote his career to motor racing.

Piquet started kart racing at the age of 14, but because his father did not approve of his racing career, he used his mother's maiden name Piquet (of French origin) misspelt as Piket to hide his identity.

Piquet dropped out of a university two years into an engineering course in 1974. He was subsequently employed in a garage to finance his career, since he had no financial support from his family.

Upon returning to Brazil, Piquet and three friends bought a 20 hp cart and participated in Brazilian go-karting (1971 and 1972 national champion) and in the local Formula Super Vee 1976 championship, in which he easily won that season. On the advice of Emerson Fittipaldi, the first Brazilian Formula One world champion who sold the chassis for the Brazilian Formula Vee champion car with his brother, he arrived in European motor sports hailed as a prodigy. In the 1978 British Formula 3 season he broke Jackie Stewart's record of the most wins in a season.

Formula One

Piquet made his Formula One debut for Ensign in Germany, starting 21st only to retire on lap 31 with a broken engine. After the race, Piquet drove a McLaren of BS Fabrications in the next three races, where he left good impressions. The deal was negotiated when BS Fabrications employees met Piquet when he was driving at Brands Hatch. His best finish was ninth in Italy.

Brabham (1978–1985)

For the last race in 1978, Piquet moved to the Brabham team; he qualified in 14th and finished 11th. Piquet stayed with Brabham until 1985.

In 1979, Piquet competed in his first full season in Formula One. He once again drove for the Brabham team, alongside double world champion, Niki Lauda. The season was difficult for the team, which was accustomed to success. Piquet retired from eleven of the fifteen races in the season. He started off his season being involved in a first-lap pile up and getting injured at the Argentine Grand Prix in Buenos Aires and crashing into Clay Regazzoni's Williams car at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos. The first points of his career came at the Dutch Grand Prix, where he finished fourth. He had a huge accident at the Italian Grand Prix; the rear section of his BT48 was completely ripped off at Monza's Curva Grande corner after another incident with Regazzoni; Piquet walked away uninjured. But even though the races saw him crash a few times, or retire with a semi-competitive car that had an unreliable engine, in qualifying Piquet performed well, qualifying in the top five several times – often out-qualifying Lauda. Two weeks after the Italian round, Lauda abruptly quit driving before the start of the Canadian Grand Prix, leaving Piquet as the number one driver for Brabham, and leaving him and new recruit Ricardo Zunino to debut the new BT49, which had a Ford-Cosworth DFV engine; Brabham ditched the Alfa Romeo V12's in protest to Alfa Romeo entering as a full works team. In the final race, the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, Piquet started from the front row and took the fastest lap in the race, clearly showing the new BT49's considerable potential.

In 1980, Piquet finished a hard-fought second in Argentina behind Alan Jones; the race was held in very hot conditions on a disintegrating track. There were doubts about the legality of the car as it was believed to be underweight. Jones went to see the car which gave the suspicion that ballast had been added to bring the car within the regulations to make it legal.

Piquet took his first win at the United States Grand Prix West in Long Beach, California by over 50 seconds from Riccardo Patrese. 5 months later, Piquet scored back to back wins in the Netherlands and Italy. He finished second in the drivers' standings, 13 points behind title winner Alan Jones. In Canada, Piquet and Jones had contact off the start and Piquet's car was damaged and caused a major crash resulting in the race being red flagged. Jones, his Championship rival, continued in the race and joined the restart in the same car. Piquet switched to his qualifying car which had a special engine that was not set up to go the distance, so Piquet retired and Jones won the race and the World Championship from Piquet.

Williams (1986–1987)

A move in 1986 to Williams saw Piquet becoming the teammate of one of his fiercest rivals, Nigel Mansell. It was reported that Honda were paying the bulk of his US$3.3 million contract. When Piquet had signed for Williams at 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, Piquet did not regard Mansell as a serious threat, as the Briton had not won a race yet in his fifth year in Formula One (and would win his first race a month later). Piquet had underestimated Mansell, and the Englishman came out of 1985 on a confidence high after winning two of the last three races in 1985. Both were regarded as high-strung characters with delicate temperaments, and two top drivers in the same team was a recipe for fireworks – and sure enough Mansell and Piquet went head to head for the title. Piquet had wanted to play the role as the number one driver. According to Piquet, the verbal agreement with Frank Williams on this point was clear, and Williams's comment that in signing Piquet he had "signed the best driver in the world" seemed to back that up. However, shortly before the beginning of the season, Frank Williams suffered a serious car accident that kept him away from the team for a long time and caused a permanent physical disability. The team was then led by technical director Patrick Head, who was also Mansell's race engineer.

Though the two drove what were clearly the best cars on the grid, their rivalry caused each to deprive the other of points, allowing Alain Prost to win one of the closest and most fiercely disputed championships ever in Formula One. The season began well with Piquet dominating the Brazilian Grand Prix and at the next the race, the San Marino Grand Prix, Piquet finished second behind Prost. During the season, fellow Brazilian and former dual-World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi estimated that Piquet could not commit more driving errors early in the season when he was judged as the best driver in the field.

Piquet (and reportedly Honda) left Adelaide following the Australian Grand Prix, fuming that Williams had not honoured their contract and had allowed Mansell to win races instead of ordering him to let the Brazilian by. Had Mansell let Piquet pass to take some extra wins, Piquet could have easily won the championship, instead of the two of them being beaten by Prost in what was an inferior car (though Prost did manage 11 podium finishes, including four wins). In this season Piquet won more races (a total of four) than he would in any of his championship-winning campaigns.

Piquet made amends in 1987, using political maneuvering and technical skill to gain the upper hand. He was also a very good testing and development driver, and was able to develop the Williams car further to make it even more competitive. At times during the season, the rift between himself and Mansell was evident, as Mansell was showing superior speed in qualifying and races. Piquet had also admitted to "not ever being quite right" after his qualifying crash for Round 2 at Imola. He was ordered by FISA's medical chief, Sid Watkins, not to race due to the concussion he suffered when his Williams hit the wall at high speed at the Tamburello curve. He was offered by RAI to join Mario Poltronieri and Clay Regazzoni to comment on the race. Piquet, who had maintained friendly relations within the commentary box, sent Ezio Zermiani. Piquet accepted improvising as a commentator, but beyond the short journalistic experience, Piquet complained at year-end about the fact that the incident had left strong psychological effects in its aftermath which had caused insomnia.

Lotus (1988–1989)

Piquet and the number 1 went to a stagnating Lotus team in 1988, and his career took a nose dive despite the Camel sponsored Lotus 100T having the same specification Honda V6 turbo that powered the almost totally dominant McLarens of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost - the 100T was a very poor chassis that was riddled with aerodynamic issues, was constantly flexing and was not properly compatible with the engine. Piquet, who had 20 wins and three World Championships following the 1987 season, began to lose his reputation when he had no wins in 1988, losing his number one status to fellow Brazilian Senna, who won eight races and the championship for McLaren (Prost won seven races, while Piquet could only manage three third-place finishes for the season).

In early 1988, he used the media to attack his rivals and gained a reputation as an outspoken "loose cannon," such as attacking Mansell and his wife, calling Mansell "an uneducated blockhead" (and insulting his wife's looks), and calling fellow Brazilian Senna "the São Paulo taxi driver" and stating that he "doesn't like women". Piquet retracted his comments when both threatened legal action. He also earned the ire of the Tifosi at the San Marino Grand Prix when he said in an interview with Playboy that Scuderia Ferrari might do better as a team if the boss (Enzo Ferrari) was a younger man instead of the 90-year-old one who rarely attended races due to his age and failing health (in fact, Enzo would pass away in August of that year). Piquet claims he was badly misquoted in the interview, which also had him questioning Prost's standing as the best driver in the world. On the official FIA video review of the 1988 season, Piquet left no doubts that the article got it wrong in his comments about Ferrari (saying that at 90, Enzo Ferrari had to be a strong man to run a Formula One team), and that he considered Prost to be the world's best driver.

Before the start of the 1988 season, the Rio de Janeiro circuit was renamed in Piquet's honor.

Piquet had a disappointing 1989 season, driving a Judd V8-powered Lotus which had 125 less hp than the Honda V10s used by McLaren. He did, however, have an excellent (considering the Lotus car's limitations) fourth place in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone where he overtook theoretically faster cars and was running third until Alessandro Nannini overtook him in the last few laps. He (and teammate Satoru Nakajima) once again had no wins and they both even failed to qualify for the 1989 Belgian Grand Prix, Piquet's first non-qualification since the 1982 Detroit Grand Prix. On what was his last attempt to qualify at Spa, Piquet lost his chance when he was slowed by rookie Frenchman Olivier Grouillard, who had gained a reputation throughout the season as a blocker.

Benetton (1990–1991)

When Lotus informed Piquet during 1989 that they would be using the Lamborghini V12 engine for 1990, he decided to leave the team claiming that there had not been enough development of the V12 during its debut year with Larrousse in 1989 and that the team would be uncompetitive using the Italian engine.

The late season announcement by Lotus meant that there were almost no seats left with one of the top teams (McLaren, Ferrari and Williams), leaving Piquet with the unenviable possibility of not having a drive for 1990. However, the Benetton team had a seat become available when they decided not to retain fill-in driver Emanuele Pirro. After two lacklustre seasons at Lotus, Piquet was forced to sign an incentive based payment-by-results deal with Benetton, who had acquired the services of John Barnard for their 1990 car, the B190 and had exclusive use of the factory Ford-Cosworth HB4 V8 engine. This saw Piquet return to something like his former top form in 1990.

Despite a handful of lacklustre performances and sometimes being outperformed by fast Italian teammate Alessandro Nannini who was forced into retirement before the Spanish Grand Prix (after his right forearm had to be surgically re-attached following a helicopter crash) Piquet scored two wins in the last two races of the season. The first in Japan was somewhat inherited after Senna had taken out Prost's Ferrari at the first turn, and both Gerhard Berger (McLaren) and Mansell (Ferrari) retired. It was his first win since the 1987 Italian Grand Prix. The second was just two weeks later at the last race of the season in Australia when after a great drive, Piquet survived a spirited, but fair, challenge from the V12 Ferrari of Mansell to win what was the 500th World Championship Formula One Grand Prix. His 18 points from the last two races saw him move from seventh in the standings (26 points) to finishing third in the championship with 43. Piquet and Gerhard Berger both scored 43 points (Piquet had scored 44 but was forced to drop one point under the "Best 11" rule of the time), but Piquet's two wins, where Berger won none, saw him finish third.

This was followed by the final win of Piquet's F1 career at Montreal in 1991 – again at the expense of longtime rival Mansell, whose Williams-Renault stalled past the old pits on the last lap while leading. In late 1991, Piquet's teammate Roberto Moreno was replaced by Michael Schumacher, who remained for the rest of the season. He had talked to the Ligier and Ferrari teams about securing a drive, but Piquet then announced his retirement from Formula One in January 1992 to concentrate on his business activities.

Other racing ventures

Indianapolis 500 (1992–1993)

Piquet attempted to race in the Indy car series and was hired by Team Menard to drive in the 1992 Indianapolis 500. He had taken to the track well, and appeared comfortable driving at high speeds despite never before racing on an oval. During practice, Piquet's car ran over a metallic piece of debris and drove through turn 3 at full speed. When driving through turn 4, Piquet abruptly took his foot off the pedal to enter the pit lane, which resulted in the car spinning and hitting the wall. Piquet suffered serious foot and ankle injuries and was forced to sit out the race. He returned after rehabilitation in 1993 and managed to qualify. He started in 13th position, but finished in 32nd, dropping out with engine problems after only 38 laps.

Sports cars (1980-1981, 1996-1997 and 2006)

Alongside Formula One, Piquet took part in the 1000km Nürburgring in 1980 and 1981 driving a BMW M1. He won the 1981 race alongside the German Hans-Joachim Stuck. However, the race had to be stopped roughly two hours in because of the fatal crash of Herbert Müller after 17 laps of the 14-mile (23 km) course.

In 1996, Piquet competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours driving a McLaren F1 GTR alongside Johnny Cecotto and Danny Sullivan, finishing eighth overall. In the following year, Piquet took part alongside JJ Lehto and Steve Soper, but the car was retired due to an accident that occurred while Lehto was driving. That same year, in December, he won the Mil Milhas Brasileiras driving the McLaren F1 GTR with Johnny Cecotto and Steve Soper.

On 20 January 2006, Piquet won the 50th edition of the Mil Milhas Brasileiras (Brazilian 1,000 miles) at the Interlagos circuit. He drove an Aston Martin DBR9 alongside his son, Nelson Piquet Jr., and drivers Christophe Bouchut and Hélio Castroneves. At the end of the race, an exhausted Piquet was quoted saying to a friend he would "never sit in a cockpit again."

Driver management

Since 2000, Piquet has supported the career of his son, Nelson Piquet Jr., who drove in the F1-feeder category GP2 for 2 seasons, achieving a best championship result of second with four race wins, and was a test driver for Renault F1 in 2007.

During the Crashgate scandal, Piquet pledged to use his wealth to find out why his son had been ordered by the Renault team to crash deliberately during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. He and his son were eventually paid a six-figure sum for costs and libel damages.

Helmet

Piquet's helmet is white and red with a thick line resembling the seam on a tennis ball (possibly due to his father wanting him to be a tennis player), and teardrop shapes filling in the round areas on the sides and top. The seam and teardrops were usually red or orange with black trim, but some parts were yellow during his Lotus years due to the Camel sponsorship, and reverted to a deep red when he left Lotus for Benetton. His sons Nelson Jr. and Pedro followed his helmet design.

Business ventures

Upon leaving motor sport, he founded Autotrac in 1992, a company that provides mobile data messaging and tracking of customers' trucks by satellite (GPS tracking). This business concluded quite successfully as the pioneer because the freight transportation of Brazil depended on trucks.

Piquet founded a racing team, Piquet Sports, in 2000. The purpose was to help the participation of Nelson Piquet Jr. in Formula Three Sudamericana. It was founded eight months before Nelson Junior turned 16.

Piquet runs some other businesses, based in Brasília.

Piquet's net worth is around US$200 million currently.

Personal life

Known as a practical joker, Piquet lived a stereotypically playboy racing driver lifestyle, earning and losing and earning again a series of small fortunes in his business dealings. He remains a competitive driver in sports car racing, albeit more for fun than with serious intent. Never a fan of street circuits (save for Adelaide in Australia), he was critical of the Monaco Grand Prix by famously stating Monaco was like "riding a bicycle around your living room." On the other hand, he loved the Monza Circuit, stating that "a win there was worth two anywhere else," where he achieved three victories in 1983, 1986 and 1987.

Piquet's first marriage lasted one year, during which a son was born in 1977. His second produced three children, including Nelson Angelo Piquet and Kelly Piquet. He also has another son from a previous relationship. He has two children with his current wife, including Pedro Estácio Piquet.

On 31 July 2007 (three weeks before his mother's death), Piquet, after repeated speeding and parking offenses, was stripped of his civilian driving licence and ordered by the Brazilian courts to attend a week of lessons in order to "learn good and safe driving conduct", and to then pass an exam. His wife Viviane received the same sentence. "I think we have to pay for our mistakes," Piquet told Brazilian media. "It's not just a speeding problem, I got tickets for all kinds of reasons, like parking where I shouldn't."

Piquet was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2000 and two racing circuits in Rio de Janeiro (formerly the Jacarepaguá Circuit) and in Brasília have been named "Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet", though the Rio circuit has since been demolished to make way for venues to be used in the 2016 Summer Olympics, with Rio de Janeiro the host city. Since his retirement, Piquet has been ranked among the greatest Formula One drivers. He was ranked 13th by Autosport in 2009, and 16th by BBC Sport in 2012.

Piquet has Portuguese and French ancestry.

In a 2012 interview on Brazilian TV with himself and former Williams teammate Nigel Mansell, Piquet revealed that he had never been right after his accident at Imola in 1987. The crash caused him to lose some 80% of his depth perception and saw him secretly visit a hospital in Milan every two weeks through the season fearing that if he told his team they would not let him drive. He went on to say that he should have won the championship in 1986 and Mansell should have won in 1987, and that after 1987 he drove for the money as due to his condition he was no longer able to lead races from the front (each of his six wins following his Imola accident were inherited from others dropping out late).

Controversies

Piquet was known for insulting and slandering other drivers during and after his racing career. In 1988, Piquet made comments in a magazine about his rival Nigel Mansell, calling him an "uneducated blockhead" and describing his wife as "ugly". He also falsely accused Ayrton Senna of being homosexual and called Enzo Ferrari "senile", adding to the latter statement that the Ferrari team would have performed better at the time if Ferrari was 30 years younger. Mansell was in particular incensed about the personal attacks on his family which he described as "out of order", while Senna countered the accusations against his sexuality in a 1990 interview with the Brazilian edition of Playboy where he revealed that he lost his virginity to a prostitute when he was 13 years old. Senna speculated in the same interview that Piquet loathed him because he had previously slept with Piquet's then-future wife. Despite Senna's high-profile relationships with Brazilian television personalities like Xuxa from 1988 to 1990 and Adriane Galisteu at the time of his death in 1994, Piquet continued to publicly refer to Senna as "gay" as late as 2020.

In 2021, during an interview on a Brazilian podcast, Piquet referred to Lewis Hamilton by the Portuguese term "neguinho" when discussing an incident between Hamilton and Max Verstappen at the 2021 British Grand Prix. After the comments resurfaced on social media in 2022, his use of the racial slur received condemnation from F1 and the community. Piquet later apologised for his remarks, explaining that they were not intended to be racist. Following this apology, new footage revealed Piquet also used homophobic language against Hamilton in a 2016 interview. When asked of his opinion about Keke Rosberg, the 1982 Formula One World Champion, Piquet described him as "a worthless turd".

In July 2022, Piquet was banned from the F1 paddock as a result of the slanderous statements made against Hamilton. Craig Slater of Sky Sports F1 reported that despite his apology, Piquet, "for the foreseeable future at least, will not be welcome in the Formula 1 paddock". The British Racing Drivers' Club also suspended Piquet's membership, and were expected to terminate his status as an honorary member, following a 7-day notice period. In March 2023, he was ordered by a Brazilian court to pay R$5,000,000 (approximately US$950,000) in moral damages. The ban was lifted by the end of 2024, and Piquet was present at the São Paulo Grand Prix as a guest of Red Bull.

In popular culture

Piquet was portrayed by Hugo Bonemer in the 2024 Senna miniseries, a dramatization of the life and racing career of Ayrton Senna.

Racing record

Complete European Formula 3 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Vandervell British F3 Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Super Visco British F3 Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One World Championship results

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† Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.

Formula One non-championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

(Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete PPG IndyCar World Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)