Three-time Formula 1 world champion Nelson Piquet has been fined $950,000 by a Brazilian court for using racist and homophobic language against Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.
In an interview on a Brazilian podcast in November 2021, Piquet used a racial slur referring to seven-time world champion Hamilton, while being asked on his views on Hamilton’s British Grand Prix clash with Max Verstappen.
Piquet soon apologised for his remarks, stating his language “was ill thought out, and I make no defence for it”.
He also claimed he was mistranslated as the derogatory term he used “is one that has widely and historically been used colloquially in Brazilian Portuguese as a synonym for ‘guy’ or ‘person’ and was never intended to offend.”
But four human rights groups, including Brazil’s National LGBT+ Alliance, took the matter to court, suing Piquet for 10 million Brazilian reals for moral damages.
On Friday, the civil court in Brazil’s capital Brasilia ordered Piquet to pay half the demanded amount, 5 million reals, the equivalent of $950,000.
In the decision, the judge in question stated that the size of the fine represents not only “the reparatory function of civil responsibility, but also (and perhaps mainly) the punitive function, precisely so that as a society we can one day get rid of the pernicious acts that are racism and homophobia”.
At the time Piquet’s comments prompted widespread condemnation by the F1 paddock and in a response on social media Hamilton wrote: “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.”
“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.”
Piquet, 70, was subsequently barred from the F1 paddock and was also suspended as an honorary member of the British BRDC.
Hamilton, the only Black driver in F1 and the only Black world champion, has been at the forefront of a push to improve diversity and inclusion in motorsport.
