RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Retired Components One champion Nelson Piquet has been ordered to pay $950,000 in “ethical damages” for making racist and homophobic feedback about Lewis Hamilton.
The 70-year-old Brazilian had referred to seven-time champion Hamilton as “neguinho,” a racially offensive time period which implies “little Black man,” in 2021. In one other interview, Piquet used racist and homophobic language.
The court docket in Brasilia on Friday ordered Piquet to pay 5 million Brazilian reals “in collective ethical damages, to be allotted to funds for the promotion of racial equality and towards discrimination of the LGBTQIA+ group.”
The fees had been filed by a number of human rights teams, together with Brazil’s Nationwide LGBTI+ Alliance.
Hamilton had condemned “archaic mindsets,” and the Mercedes driver stated he had been “surrounded by these attitudes and focused (his) complete life.” He’s the one Black driver in F1 and acquired honorary citizenship from Brazil final yr.
Piquet, who gained three F1 titles within the Nineteen Eighties, was discussing a crash between Hamilton and Crimson Bull driver Max Verstappen that passed off throughout the British Grand Prix in 2021. His daughter Kelly Piquet is Verstappen’s girlfriend.
Piquet later apologized in an announcement for the “unwell thought out” racial time period however stated it “is one which has extensively and traditionally been used colloquially in Brazilian Portuguese as a synonym for ‘man’ or ‘individual’ and was by no means supposed to offend.”
In his choice, decide Pedro Matos de Arruda stated “subtlety is likely one of the traits of latest Brazilian racism” and that the phrase is “not an affectionate nickname.”
Piquet had used racist and homophobic language within the different interview when discussing Hamilton lacking out on a earlier championship.
Piquet’s feedback implied if Hamilton hadn’t been homosexual, “he would have gained the championship. … Due to this fact, being homosexual could be a unfavorable attribute,” the decide stated in his choice.
The retired driver has the precise to attraction the ruling.
Piquet had angered some F1 followers for his help of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. He donated about $95,000 to Bolsonaro’s failed re-election bid.
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