Three-time F1 champ Nelson Piquet fined £780k for racist and homophobic comments about Lewis Hamilton
25 March 2023, 17:57 | Updated: 25 March 2023, 18:00
Three-time Formula One champion Nelson Piquet Snr has been ordered to pay a £780,000 fine for making racist and homophobic comments about Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.
Piquet used a racial slur referring to Hamilton, when commenting on the seven-time world champion's British Grand Prix crash with Max Verstappen in an interview in November 2021.
The former racer, 70, was said to have used language that is equivalent or similar to the N-word.
Piquet's daughter Kelly is the girlfriend of Hamilton's rival, Verstappen.
After footage of the interview emerged on social media in June last year, Mr Hamilton called for action to change "archaic mindsets".
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Piquet apologised to Hamilton but said that the comments had been mistranslated.
He said at the time the word is used "colloquially" in the language to mean "guy or person" and was "never intended to offend".
In another interview that emerged later, Piquet used racist and homophobic language against Hamilton when describing how the British driver missed out on winning the 2016 championship.
A Brazilian court has now ruled that Piquet must pay a fine of five million Brazilian reals (£780,000) for his comments.
Mr Hamilton, who was made an honorary citizen of Brazil last June, is F1's only black driver.
Judge Pedro Matos de Arrudo said in his decision that the amount of compensation was given "in the sense that one should not only appreciate the reparative function of civil liability but also (and perhaps mainly) the punitive function so that, as a society, we can someday be free from the pernicious acts that are racism and homophobia".
The charges were brought by four human rights groups, including Brazil's National LGBT+ Alliance, which initially wanted the Brazilian to pay 10 million reals for alleged moral damages.
Piquet has been fined half that amount.
After Piquet's initial comment came to light, Hamilton's team Mercedes and F1's governing body immediately condemned "in the strongest terms any use of racist or discriminatory language of any kind".
Hamilton himself also responded, writing on Twitter: "It's more than language. These archaic mindsets need to change and have no place in our sport.
"I've been surrounded by these attitudes and targeted my whole life. There has been plenty of time to learn. Time has come for action."
