Piquet ordered to pay $950,000 for racist, homophobic comments

File picture of former Formula One driver Nelson Piquet, right, with former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Brazil’s triple Formula One champion Nelson Piquet must pay 5 million Brazilian Reals ($953,050) in moral damages for racist and homophobic comments against Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, a Brazilian court ruled on Friday.

In an interview in November 2021, Piquet used a racial slur referring to the seven-time world champion, when commenting on Hamilton’s British Grand Prix crash with Max Verstappen.

Hamilton called for action to change “archaic mindsets” after footage of the interview surfaced on social media last June. Piquet, 70, apologised to the British driver and said his comments had been mistranslated. Piquet’s daughter Kelly is Verstappen’s partner.

In another clip which surfaced later, Piquet used racist and homophobic language against Hamilton in a podcast interview when describing how Hamilton missed out on the 2016 championship to Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton, who was awarded honorary Brazilian citizenship last June, is the sport’s only Black driver.

The charges were brought by four human rights groups which wanted Piquet to pay 10 million Brazilian Reals for alleged moral damages.

In his decision, Judge Pedro Matos de Arrudo said 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”.