Three-time Formula 1 world champion Nelson Piquet has been ordered to pay 5 million Brazilian Reals (£780,000) for making racist and homophobic comments about Lewis Hamilton.
The 70-year-old Brazilian used a racially derogatory term when referring to Hamilton in an interview in 2021.
Hamilton calls “old-fashioned thinking” to change after the video appears.
Piquet later apologized for “wrong thinking” Racially abusive remarks about the British Mercedes driver.
Formula 1, Hamilton’s Mercedes team and world motorsport governing body FIA condemned Piquet’s comments as he discussed the crash between Hamilton and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, teammate of the team. daughter Piquet, in the first round of the 2021 British Grand Prix.
Piquet said he “does not defend” that comment, but added the term he uses “is a term that has been used widely and historically in Brazilian Portuguese as a synonym.” with ‘guy’ or ‘person’ and never meant to offend”.
In another interview that emerged later, Piquet used racist and homophobic language when describing how Hamilton missed out on the 2016 championship to Nico Rosberg.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton is the sport’s only black driver.
The charges against Piquet were brought by four human rights groups, including the National LGBT+ Alliance of Brazil, which want Piquet to pay 10 million Brazilian Reals for the alleged moral damages.
A Brazilian court ruled on Friday that he must pay five million Brazilian Reals ($953,000), with Judge Pedro Matos de Arrudo saying the amount of compensation was given “to one day, with As a society, we can get away with dangerous practices that are racist and homophobic.”
