Former F1 champion Piquet fined for Hamilton’s racist comments

Nelson Piquet of Brazil used racist and homophobic language against Lewis Hamilton, the only black driver in the sport.

Three-time Brazilian Formula One champion Nelson Piquet must pay five million Brazilian reais ($953,050) in non-material damages for racist and homophobic comments against Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, a Brazilian court has ruled.

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 the “archaic mindset” after footage of the interview surfaced on social media last June.

“It is more than a language. These archaic mindsets need to change and have no place in our sport,” Hamilton, who recently received honorary Brazilian citizenship and is the sport’s only black driver, said on Twitter at the time.

“I have been surrounded by these attitudes and directed my entire life. There has been a lot of time to learn. The time for action has come.”

Piquet, 70, apologized to Hamilton, saying his comments had been mistranslated. Piquet’s daughter Kelly is Verstappen’s partner.

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

The charges were brought by four human rights groups, including Brazil’s National LGBT+ Alliance, who wanted Piquet to pay 10 million Brazilian reais for alleged non-pecuniary damages.

In his decision, Judge Pedro Matos de Arruda said that the amount of compensation was given “in the sense that not only the remedial function of civil liability must be appreciated, but also (and perhaps mainly) the punitive function so that, as a society, may one day be free of the pernicious acts that are racism and homophobia.”