Nelson Piquet sentenced for racist remarks against Hamilton: he will pay 900 thousand euros

Nine hundred thousand euro fine. That is five million reais. They cost so much racist and homophobic expressions with which Nelson Piquet he defined Lewis Hamilton. The 1981, 1983 and 1987 world champion was convicted in the first instance by the Civil Court of Brasilia for what he said in an interview with the Youtube channel Motorsports Talks in November 2021, after the Silverstone Grand Prix in which the driver of Mercedes had had contact on the track with Max Verstappenpartner since 2020 of Kelly PiquetNelson’s daughter. The former Brazilian champion had repeatedly called Hamilton “a little nigger” and then claimed that he had lost the 2016 drivers’ title, won by his partner in Mercedes Nico Rosberg, probably because “he gave a little too much f *** at the time”. Piquet then tried to justify himself by saying: “The term ‘negretto’ has been widely and historically used colloquially in the Brazilian Portuguese language as a synonym for ‘boy’ or ‘person’ and has never been intended in an offensive way”.

Nelson Piquet, the judge: “This sentence has a punitive and compensatory function”

Judge Pedro Matos de Arruda, the drafter of the sentence, does not think so, according to which “the amount of the compensation must be seen not only in its remedial function of civil liability, but also (and perhaps above all) in a punitive function, precisely because as a society, we can one day be free from the pernicious acts of racism and homophobia.” The legal action was filed by the National LGBTI Alliance, “Brazilian Association of Homotransfective Families”, by the “Santo Dias Human Rights Center” of the Archdiocese of São Paulo and by “Francisco de Assis: Education, Citizenship and Human Rights “.

Nelson Piquet banned forever from the Formula One paddock

For those words Piquet was banned forever from the Formula One paddock, while all the main teams expressed their support for Hamilton, who had reacted with firmness and composure: “Here – he explained – it’s not just about language. These Archaic mentalities need to change and they have no place in our sport. I’ve been surrounded by these attitudes and targets all my life. There’s been a lot of time to learn. It’s time to act.”