Nelson Piquet has been fined nearly $1 million for making racist remarks about Lewis Hamilton

RIO DE JANEIRO — Retired Formula One champion Nelson Piquet has been ordered by a Brazilian court to pay $950,000 in “moral damages” for making racist and homophobic comments about Lewis Hamilton.

The 70-year-old Brazilian had referred to seven-time champion Hamilton in 2021 as “neguinho”, a racially offensive term meaning “little black man”. In another interview, Piquet used racist and homophobic language.

The Brasilia court on Friday ordered Piquet to pay 5 million Brazilian reals “as collective moral damages to be allocated to funds promoting racial equality and against discrimination in the LGBTQIA+ community.”

The charges were brought by several human rights groups, including Brazil’s National LGBTI+ Alliance.

In their complaint, the human rights groups said Piquet violated the norm of human dignity enshrined in the country’s constitution.

The judge said Piquet’s comments met the definition of racial discrimination set out in Brazil’s 2010 Statute for Racial Equality.

Hamilton had condemned “archaic mindsets” and the Mercedes driver said he was “surrounded by those attitudes and targeted all my life”.

He is the only black driver in F1 and received honorary citizenship from Brazil last year.

Piquet, who won three F1 titles in the 1980s, spoke about a crash between Hamilton and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen that occurred during the 2021 British Grand Prix.

His daughter Kelly Piquet is Verstappen’s girlfriend.

Piquet later apologized in a statement for the “ill-conceived” racial term, but said it “is a term that has been widely and historically used colloquially in Brazilian Portuguese as a synonym for ‘type’ or ‘person’ and should never be meant to offend.” ”

In his decision, Judge Pedro Matos de Arruda said “subtlety is one of the hallmarks of contemporary Brazilian racism” and that the word was “not an affectionate nickname”.

Piquet had used racist and homophobic language in the other interview when discussing Hamilton missing out on a previous championship.

Piquet’s comments implied that if Hamilton hadn’t been gay, “he would have won the championship. … Therefore, being gay would be a negative trait,” the judge said in his decision.

The retired driver has the right to appeal the verdict.

Piquet had angered some F1 fans for his support of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. He donated around $95,000 to Bolsonaro’s failed re-election bid.