Racist comments aimed at Lewis Hamilton have cost Brazil’s former F1 champion Nelson Piquet nearly a million U.S.A. dollars.
A court in Brazil has ordered that Piquet must pay five million Brazilian reals ($953,050) in moral damages for racist and homophobic comments against the seven-time F1 champion.
Piquet made the distasteful comments during an interview in 2021 when he was giving his opinion on Hamilton’s British Grand Prix collision with Max Verstappen.
At the time, Hamilton responded with dignity and maturity that has become synonymous with his public statements, posting on Twitter: “It’s more than language. These archaic mindsets need to change and have no place in our sport… I’ve been surrounded by these attitudes and targeted my whole life. There has been plenty of time to learn. Time has come for action.”
Although 70-year-old Piquet, whose daughter Kelly is Verstappen’s partner, apologised to Hamilton, the court meted out the fine at the conclusion of a case brought by four human rights groups.
One of the groups, Brazil’s National LGBT+ Alliance, had demanded a much larger fine.
Issuing the ruling, Judge Pedro Matos de Arruda said one should not only appreciate the reparative function of civil liability “but also and perhaps mainly the punitive function so that, as a society, we can someday be free from the pernicious acts that are racism and homophobia”.
Last year, Hamilton was made an honorary citizen of Brazil.
