Fresh Piquet slurs revealed on podcast
The racism row engulfing Nelson Piquet and Formula One escalated yesterday as it emerged he had made even more offensive remarks about Lewis Hamilton on a podcast.
As Hamilton called for action against “older voices” with offensive views, reports in Brazil claimed Piquet called the Briton a neguinho a third time and added another derogatory remark.
According to the Grande Premio website, which had access to the full two-hour interview recorded last November, the Brazilian launched into the attack when asked for his thoughts on 1982 world title winner Keke Rosberg.
“Keke? He was worthless,” the three-time former champion said. “He’s like his son [Nico]. He won a championship...”
Referring to Rosberg Jnr beating seven-time champion Hamilton in 2016, Piquet allegedly added: “The neguinho [Hamilton] was probably being f----- in the a-- more than usual back then, so he was not doing well [in races].”
Piquet has already been barred from the Formula One paddock and thrown out of the British Racing Drivers’ Club after it emerged on Tuesday that he had twice used the derogatory phrase neguinho while discussing Hamilton.
Piquet had been under pressure to contact Hamilton to say sorry, but, in a statement on Wednesday, 69-year-old claimed his comments had been mistranslated.
“The term 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,” a statement read. He has yet to respond to reports in Brazil about his further reported comments.
On Thursday, ahead of the British Grand Prix, Hamilton called for “older voices” with offensive views to be refused a platform after a week where there have also been provocative remarks made by former F1 head Bernie Ecclestone about Vladimir Putin.
Hamilton said: “Discrimination is
not something we should be giving a platform. We need people to be bringing people together. We are all the same and the comments we are seeing are not helpful.”
Hamilton was also referring to an interview given by another threetime champion, Sir Jackie Stewart, who said last week that he thought Hamilton should retire.
Red Bull have also sacked reserve driver Juri Vips after he made an offensive remark on an online gaming stream.