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). 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, 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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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). 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.

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.

Complete Formula One results

(F1 driver results legend 2) (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
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 Ret	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 S4 (t/c)	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 S4 (t/c)	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 S4 (t/c)	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 S4 (t/c)	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 (t/c)	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 (t/c)	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 (t/c)	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	8th	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

See also

• Nelson Angelo Piquet
• Ayrton Senna
• Emerson Fittipaldi

External links

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