Piquet

Rio de Janeiro, 17 August 1952. Nelson Piquet Souto Maior was born into a middle-class family in the city’s northern suburbs, the son of a physician. He showed little interest in formal education but was drawn to cars from an early age. By his teens, he was racing go-karts on improvised circuits, often skipping school to work on engines. His father disapproved, hoping his son would pursue medicine. Piquet’s breakthrough came when he won the Brazilian karting championship in 1971, a feat he repeated in 1972. Those titles convinced him to abandon university and commit fully to racing. He sold his own car to fund a move to Europe in 1977, where he entered Formula Three with a second-hand Ralt. Within a year, he had won the British Formula Three championship, a performance that caught the attention of Bernie Ecclestone and earned him a test with the Brabham Formula One team.

The path to Formula 1 for Nelson Piquet began not in Europe’s junior categories, but in his native Brazil. He started karting at 14, winning the Brazilian karting championship in 1971 and 1972. In 1977, he moved to Europe to compete in Formula 3, driving for the Jim Russell team. He finished third in the British F3 championship in 1978, a season that included a notable victory at the prestigious Formula Three race in Monaco. That same year, his performances caught the attention of the Ensign team, which gave him his F1 debut at the 1978 German Grand Prix. After a single race with Ensign and a brief, unsuccessful stint at McLaren, Piquet’s career was revived by Bernie Ecclestone, who signed him for Brabham. Ecclestone placed him in the team’s second car for the final three races of 1978, a move that set the stage for his full-time F1 debut in 1979.

Nelson Piquet arrived in Formula One in 1978 with Ensign, but his career truly took shape at Brabham. Over 205 starts, he won 23 Grands Prix and three world championships—1981, 1983, and 1987—driving for Brabham, Williams, Lotus, and Benetton. His 1983 title with a turbocharged Brabham-BMW made him the first champion to win with a turbo engine. He was a master of car setup, known for extracting performance from difficult machinery, and his rivalry with Nigel Mansell at Williams produced some of the sport’s most intense internal battles. Piquet’s 1987 championship came despite a violent Imola crash that, he later revealed, cost him 80% of his depth perception. He hid the injury from his team, secretly visiting a Milan hospital every two weeks. After 1987, he admitted he drove largely for money, unable to lead from the front as before. His final seasons at Lotus and Benetton yielded no wins, and he retired after 1991 with 60 podiums and 24 poles.

The three seasons that defined Nelson Piquet’s dominance were 1981, 1983, and 1987, each delivering a World Drivers’ Championship. In 1981, driving for Brabham, he secured his first title in a season-long battle with Carlos Reutemann, winning three races. Two years later, he became the first driver in Formula 1 history to win a championship with a turbocharged engine, piloting the Brabham-BMW to victory in 1983 with three wins. His third and final crown came in 1987 with Williams, where he won three Grands Prix and clinched the title at the Japanese Grand Prix, edging out teammate Nigel Mansell. Across these three peak seasons, Piquet amassed 9 of his 23 career wins and 3 of his 60 podiums. However, the 1987 season was shadowed by a severe crash at Imola that, as he later revealed, cost him 80% of his depth perception. He secretly sought treatment throughout the year, racing through an injury that fundamentally altered the final arc of his career.

Piquet’s personal life has often mirrored the high-stakes, high-reward nature of his racing career. He married his first wife, Maria Clara, in 1976; the marriage lasted a year and produced a son. His second marriage, to Dutch-born Sylvia Tamsma, yielded three children, including future Formula One driver Nelson Piquet Jr. and Kelly Piquet, who is now the partner of four-time world champion Max Verstappen. From a previous relationship, he has a son named Laszlo. With his current wife, Brazilian Vivianne de Souza Leão, he has two sons, Pedro and Marco, both of whom have pursued motorsport careers, Pedro in Stock Car Pro Series.

Known for his sharp tongue and practical jokes, Piquet cultivated a playboy image, earning and losing small fortunes in business. In 2007, after repeated driving offenses, a Brazilian court stripped him of his civilian license and ordered him to attend driving lessons. He and his wife Viviane both received the same sentence. “I think we have to pay for our mistakes,” Piquet told Brazilian media. He has Portuguese and French ancestry and currently lives on a farm in the suburbs of Brasília, where he keeps a private automobile museum and an airstrip.

The end of Piquet’s Formula 1 career was sealed not by age but by his own sharp tongue. In 1991, talks with Ferrari collapsed after Tifosi remembered his remark that the team would only win again “with the death of the Commendatore.” His history of feuds—with Patrick Head at Williams, Gérard Ducarouge at Lotus, and a near-physical fight with Benetton’s Tom Walkinshaw—closed the doors of top teams. A rumored move to Ligier held no appeal; he refused to race without a chance to win.

Piquet turned to IndyCar in 1992, driving a Lola-Buick for Menards. He was the fastest rookie in practice until a slow tire puncture sent him into the wall at Indianapolis at full speed. The crash caused multiple leg and foot fractures, a traumatic brain injury, and thoracic damage. Several surgeries rebuilt his lower limbs, but the sequelae ended his open-wheel career. He returned to Indianapolis in 1993 but retired with engine failure.

He has since raced only for pleasure: the Mil Milhas Brasileiras (which he won twice, most recently in 2006 sharing an Aston Martin DBR9), the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Corrida de Calhambeques. In 2013, he underwent successful heart surgery. He now lives on a farm in the suburbs of Brasília, where he keeps a private automobile museum and an airstrip.

He lives on a farm in the suburbs of Brasília, where his property includes a private automobile museum and an airstrip. He remains a competitive driver in sports car racing, though he now participates for pleasure rather than serious intent. He has driven in events such as the Corrida de Calhambeques, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, and the Mil Milhas Brasileiras, which he won twice—most recently in 2006, sharing an Aston Martin DBR9 with Hélio Castroneves, Christophe Bouchut, and his son Nelson Ângelo Piquet. In September 2021, Piquet drove the Rolls-Royce that carried President Jair Bolsonaro and the first lady during Brazil’s Independence Day flag-raising ceremony. The following November, he participated in pro-Bolsonaro demonstrations. Piquet underwent successful heart surgery in November 2013.

By the time he left Formula One, Piquet had three world championships, 23 wins, and a reputation as perhaps the finest car setup man of his generation. That technical gift, born from an obsessive feel for chassis balance, set him apart from rivals who relied more on raw speed. His 1981 title with Brabham came in a ground-effect car he helped refine; his 1983 crown made him the first champion to win with a turbocharged engine. The 1987 championship with Williams, secured against teammate Nigel Mansell, cemented a career that spanned 204 starts across six teams. Yet his legacy is complicated. The same sharp tongue that closed doors at Ferrari and Lotus also produced decades of public feuds, including homophobic slurs aimed at Ayrton Senna and, in 2022, a racist remark about Lewis Hamilton that drew a formal condemnation from the FIA. Two Brazilian circuits once bore his name—the Jacarepaguá track in Rio was demolished for the 2016 Olympics—and he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2000. Autosport ranked him 13th among F1 drivers in 2009; the BBC placed him 16th in 2012. He remains, in the sport’s memory, both a three-time champion and a figure whose conduct outside the cockpit continues to divide opinion.