He may have “apologized wholeheartedly” and evoked poorly translated remarks, when they had filtered last June, that was not enough. Nelson Piquet was sentenced Friday by the 20th Civil Court of Brasilia to a fine of 5 million reals (about 880,000 euros) for his racist and homophobic statements against Lewis Hamilton. Four human rights associations had sued the triple world champion, now 70 years old. The funds raised must be used to promote racial equality and fight against discrimination affecting the LGBTQIA+ community.
In an interview dating from November 2021, but which caused a scandal a few months later, the septuagenarian had called the Briton a “little black” (“neguinho” in the original version) by returning to an incident with the Dutchman Max Verstappen in the first round of the 2021 British Grand Prix. “The little black guy put his car in and left it because there was no way he could overtake two cars on that bend,” said Piquet, whose daughter is Verstappen’s girlfriend, in a video interview with Motorsports.com.
“An intolerable offense” for the judge
Other words then filtered out, where Piquet used the same term, coupled with homophobic expressions, to talk about the rivalry between the seven-time world champion and the German Nico Rosberg when both were driving for Mercedes.
According the website of the brazilian daily O Globo, Judge Pedro Matos de Arruda spoke of an “intolerable offence”, “all the more so when we consider the impact given to it when it comes to a person as recognized and admired as the accused”. “Recognized” of course. “Admired”, maybe not.