Nelson Piquet, a Brazilian three-time Formula 1 world champion, has been ordered to pay £780,000 for his racist and homophobic comments about Lewis Hamilton.
The charges against Piquet were brought by four human rights groups, including Brazil’s National LGBT+ Alliance, which wanted Piquet to pay £1.56million for alleged moral damages.
A Brazilian court ruled on Friday that he must pay £780,000, with Judge Pedro Matos de Arrudo saying the amount of compensation was given so that society can someday be free racism and homophobia.
The 70-year-old Brazilian used a racially offensive term – which he later apologised for – when referring to Hamilton in a 2021 interview.
Formula 1, Hamilton’s Mercedes team and world motorsport governing body the FIA condemned Piquet’s comments where he discussed the accident between Hamilton and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, who is the partner of Piquet’s daughter, on the first lap of the 2021 British Grand Prix.
Piquet claimed that he made no defence of the remarks but stated that the term he used is one that has widely and historically been used colloquially in Brazilian Portuguese as a synonym for ‘guy’ or ‘person’ and was never intended to offend.
In another interview that surfaced later, Piquet used racist and homophobic language when describing how Formula 1’s only black driver Hamilton missed out on the 2016 championship to Nico Rosberg.