NELSON PIQUET

'Nelson Piquet Souto Maior' (born August 17, 1952), more commonly known as 'Nelson Piquet', is a Brazilian 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 (all 3), Alain Prost (4), Juan Manuel Fangio (5), and Michael Schumacher (7)).

Contents

Career

Reckless driving

Complete Formula One results

Footnotes

See also

External links

Career

Piquet, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was the son of a Brazilian government minister who did not approve of his racing career, and for this reason he was forced to use his mother's maiden name Piquet (of French origin and pronounced as "Pee-Kè") misspelt as Piket to hide his identity.

After succeeding in Brazilian go-karting (1971 and 1972 national champion) and local super-V 1976 championship, he arrived in European automobilism being considered a prodigy in British Formula 3 during the 1978 season when he broke Jackie Stewart's record of most wins in a season, and his promotion to Formula One heralded one of the great careers in the sport. 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 a title with a turbo engine in 1983.
A shift in 1986 to the Williams team saw Piquet in direct competition with one of his fiercest rivals, Nigel Mansell. Both had highly strung characters and 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 steal one of the 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.

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 qualifying 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.
Since 2000, he has supported the career of his son, Nelson Angelo Piquet, who was a leading GP2 driver for the last 2 seasons and has been pegged by the F1 media as a future star, being signed on by Renault as test driver for the 2007 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 on a cockpit again”.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2000.

Reckless driving

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 a week of lessons in order to "learn good and safe driving conduct", and 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."^[1]

Complete Formula One results

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

Yr	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Points[2]
1978	Team Tissot Ensign	Ensign N177	Cosworth V8	ARG	BRA	RSA	USW	MON	BEL	ESP	SWE	FRA	GBR	GER Ret						-	0
	BS Fabrications	McLaren M23													AUT Ret	NED Ret	ITA 9	USA
	Parmalat Racing Team	Brabham BT46	Alfa Romeo Flat-12																CAN 11
1979	Parmalat Racing Team	Brabham BT46	Alfa Romeo Flat-12	ARG Ret																15th	3
		Brabham BT48	Alfa Romeo V12		BRA Ret	RSA 7	USW 8	ESP Ret	BEL Ret	MON 7	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 12	AUT Ret	NED 4	ITA Ret
		Brabham BT49	Cosworth V8														CAN Ret	''USA'' 12
1980	Parmalat Racing Team	Brabham BT49	Cosworth V8	ARG 2	BRA Ret	RSA 4	'''USW''' 1	BEL Ret	MON 3	FRA 4	GBR 2	GER 4	AUT 5	NED 1	ITA 1	'CAN' Ret	USA Ret			'2nd'	'54'
1981	Parmalat Racing Team	Brabham BT49C	Cosworth V8	USW 3	'BRA' 12	'''ARG''' 1	SMR 1	BEL 2	'MON' Ret	ESP Ret	FRA 3	GBR Ret	GER 1	AUT 3	NED 2	ITA 6	'CAN' 5	LVS 5		'1st'	'50'
1982	Parmalat Racing Team	Brabham BT50	BMW Straight-4	RSA Ret				BEL 5	MON Ret	USE DNQ	CAN 1	NED 2	GBR Ret	FRA Ret	''GER'' Ret	'''AUT''' Ret	SUI 4	ITA Ret	LVS Ret	11th	20
		Brabham BT49D	Cosworth V8		''BRA'' DSQ	USW Ret	SMR
1983	Fila Sport	Brabham BT52	BMW Straight-4	''BRA'' 1	USW Ret	FRA 2	SMR Ret	''MON'' 2	BEL 4	USE 4	CAN Ret									'1st'	'59'
		Brabham BT52B										GBR 2	GER 13	AUT 3	'NED' Ret	''ITA'' 1	EUR 1	''RSA'' 3
1984	MRD International	Brabham BT53	BMW	BRA Ret	'RSA' Ret	BEL 9	'''SMR''' Ret	FRA Ret	MON Ret	'''CAN''' 1	'USE' 1	USA Ret	'GBR' 7	GER Ret	'AUT' 2	NED Ret	'ITA' Ret	'''EUR''' 3	' POR' 6	5th	29
1985	Motor Racing Developments Ltd	Brabham BT54	BMW	BRA Ret	POR Ret	SMR 9	MON Ret	CAN Ret	USE 6	FRA 1	GBR 4	GER Ret	AUT Ret	'NED' 8	ITA 2	BEL 5	EUR Ret	RSA Ret	AUS Ret	8th	21
1986	Canon Williams Team	Williams FW11	Honda V6	''BRA'' 1	ESP Ret	''SMR'' 2	MON 7	'BEL' Ret	''CAN'' 3	''USE'' Ret	FRA 3	'GBR' 2	GER 1	''HUN'' 1	AUT Ret	ITA 1	POR 3	''MEX'' 4	''AUS'' 2	'3rd'	'69'
1987	Canon Williams Team	Williams FW11B	Honda V6	''BRA'' 2	SMR DNS	BEL Ret	MON 2	USE 2	''FRA'' 2	'GBR' 2	GER 1	''HUN'' 1	'AUT' 2	'ITA' 1	POR 3	'ESP' 4	''MEX'' 2	JPN 15	AUS Ret	'1st'	'73 (76)'
1988	Camel Team Lotus Honda	Lotus 100T	Honda V6	BRA 3	SMR 3	MON Ret	MEX Ret	CAN 4	USE Ret	FRA 5	GBR 5	GER Ret	HUN 8	BEL 4	ITA Ret	POR Ret	ESP 8	JPN Ret	AUS 3	6th	22
1989	Camel Team Lotus	Lotus 101	Judd V8	BRA Ret	SMR Ret	MON Ret	MEX 11	USA Ret	CAN 4	FRA 8	GBR 4	GER 5	HUN 6	BEL DNQ	ITA Ret	POR Ret	ESP 8	JPN 4	AUS Ret	12th	12
1990	Benetton Formula	Benetton B189B	Ford V8	USA 4	BRA 6															'3rd'	'43 (44)'
		Benetton B190				SMR 5	MON Ret	CAN 2	MEX 6	FRA 4	GBR 5	GER Ret	HUN 3	BEL 5	ITA 7	POR 5	ESP Ret	JPN 1	AUS 1
1991	Camel Benetton Ford	Benetton B190B	Ford V8	USA 3	BRA 5															6th	26.5
		Benetton B191				SMR Ret	MON Ret	CAN 1	MEX Ret	FRA 8	GBR 5	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL 3	ITA 6	POR 5	ESP 11	JPN 7	AUS 4

Footnotes

1. Ex-F1 champ takes driving lessons
2. Up until , not all points scored by a driver contributed to their final World Championship tally (see list of pointscoring systems for more information). Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

See also

★ Nelson Angelo Piquet

★ Ayrton Senna

★ Emerson Fittipaldi

External links

★ Entry on Nelson Piquet from grandprix.com

★ Nelson Piquet Statistics