Nelson Piquet

Nelson Piquet

1991 United States Grand Prix
Nationality Brazilian
Formula One World Championship career
Active years	1978 - 1991
Teams	Ensign, non-works McLaren, Brabham, Williams, Lotus, Benetton
Races	207 (204 starts)
Championships	3 (1981, 1983, 1987)
Wins	23
Podium finishes	60
Career points	481.5 (485.5)[1]
Pole positions	24
Fastest laps	23
First race	1978 German Grand Prix
First win	1980 United States Grand Prix West
Last win	1991 Canadian Grand Prix
Last race	1991 Australian Grand Prix

Nelson Piquet Souto Maior (born August 17, 1952), more commonly known as Nelson Piquet, is a Brazilian former racing driver who was Formula One world champion in 1981, 1983, and 1987. He is one of the few men to win at least three world championships in the history of Formula One (the others being Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna (3 each), Alain Prost (4), Juan Manuel Fangio (5), and Michael Schumacher (7).

Career

Piquet was the son of Estácio Gonçalves Souto Maior, a Brazilian politician. His father was moved to Brasília with his family around 1960, and became a government minister for Health in João Goulart's government (1961–1964).^[2][3] Thus, Piquet grew up from the boyhood to youth in the new capital of Brazil though born in Rio de Janeiro, the former capital. He started kart racing at the age of 14,^[4] but because his father did not approve of his racing career, he used his mother's maiden name Piquet (of French origin and pronounced as "Pee-Kè") misspelt as Piket to hide his identity.

Piquet driving a BMW M1 sports car at the Nürburgring in 1980.

After succeeding in Brazilian go-karting (1971 and 1972 national champion) and in the local Formula Super Vee 1976 championship, on the advice of Emerson Fittipaldi, who was the first Brazilian Formula One world champion at the time and sold the chassis for the Brazilian Formula Vee championship with his brother,^[5] 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, and his promotion to Formula One heralded the start of a long and successful career. Together with the Brabham team, including team boss Bernie Ecclestone and chief designer Gordon Murray, he became a consistent challenger for the world title, and was the first driver to win the F1 title with a turbo engine in 1983.

Piquet driving for Brabham at the 1981 Monaco Grand Prix.

A move in 1986 to Williams saw Piquet becoming the team-mate of one of his fiercest rivals, Nigel Mansell. Both were regarded as highly strung characters with delicate temperaments. 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. Though the two drove 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 F1. Piquet made amends in 1987, using political maneuvering and technical skill to gain the upper hand. Despite winning fewer races than Mansell, in 1987 Piquet emerged as world champion. When Piquet followed the dominant Honda engines to a stagnating Lotus team in 1988, his career took a nose dive. He began to lose his reputation when he had no wins in 1988 and even failed to qualify on one occasion in 1989. He resorted to using the media to attack his rivals and gained a reputation as an outspoken "loose cannon". However, a payment-by-results deal with Benetton saw Piquet return to top form in 1990, with two wins, followed by the final win of his F1 career at Montreal in 1991 - at the expense of long time rival Mansell.

Piquet driving for Brabham at the 1985 German Grand Prix.

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. One of the great characters of 1980s F1, he tried his hand at the Indianapolis 500 in 1992, but crashed during practice and was badly injured. He returned in 1993 and started in 13th position, but finished in 32nd, after engine problems allowed him to complete only 38 laps. He remains a competitive driver in sports car racing, albeit more for fun than with serious intent.

Piquet driving for Lotus at the 1988 Canadian Grand Prix.

Since 2000, he has supported the career of his son, Nelson Angelo Piquet, 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 in 2007. He has been pegged by the F1 media as a future star, being signed on by Renault to race alongside Fernando Alonso for the 2008 season.

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

He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2000.

Career in management and business

He founded Autotrac in 1994, a company that provides mobile data messaging and tracking of customers' trucks by satellite (GPS tracking).^[6] 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 Junior in Formula Three Sudamericana, it was founded eight months before Nelson Junior became 16.^[7]

Piquet runs some other businesses, based in Brasília.

Road violations

On July 31, 2007 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."^[8]

Complete Formula One results

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

Footnotes

See also

• Nelson Piquet Jr.
• Ayrton Senna
• Emerson Fittipaldi

External links

• Entry on Nelson Piquet from grandprix.com
• Nelson Piquet Statistics