Nelson Piquet

Nelson Piquet Souto Maior born 17 August 1952 is a Brazilian retired racing driver and businessman who won the World Drivers Championship three times in the years 1981 1983 and 1987 Piquet had a brief career in tennis before losing interest in the sport and subsequently took up karting and hid his identity to prevent his father discovering his hobby He became the Brazilian national karting champion in 197172 and won the Formula Vee championship in 1976 With advice from Emerson Fittipaldi Piquet went to Europe to further success by taking the record number of wins in Formula Three in 1978 beating Jackie Stewarts alltime record In the same year he made his Formula One debut with the Ensign team and drove for McLaren and Brabham In 1979 Piquet moved to the Brabham team and finished the runnerup in 1980 before winning the championship in 1981 Piquet in 1982 was hampered by severe engine unreliability but he saw a resurgence for 1983 and his second world championship For 198485 Piquet had once again lost chances to win the championship but managed to score three wins during that period He moved to the Williams team in 1986 and was a title contender until the final round in Australia Piquet took his third and final championship in 1987 during a heated battle with teammate Nigel Mansell which left the pairs relationship sour Piquet subsequently moved to Lotus for 198889 where he experienced his third drop in form He eventually went to the Benetton team for 199091 where he managed to win three races before retiring After retiring from Formula One Piquet tried his hand at the Indianapolis 500 for two years He also had a go at sports car racing at various points during and after his Formula One career Piquet is currently retired and runs several businesses in Brazil He also manages his sons Nelson Piquet Jr and Pedro Piquet who are also professional racing drivers Piquet was born 17 August 1952 in Rio de Janeiro then the capital of Brazil the son of Estácio Gonçalves Souto Maior 19131974 a Brazilian physician His father moved his family to the new capital Brasília in 1960 and became Minister for Health in João Goularts government 196164 Piquet had two brothers Alexis and Geraldo and a sister Genusa Piquet was the youngest of the children His father wanted Piquet to be a professional tennis player and was given a scholarship at a school in the United States in Atlanta Piquet started playing tennis at the age of 11 He won tournaments in Brazil and eventually took a trip to California to test his skill against tougher American players During his time he had learned to speak English and greatly matured His short tennis career saw Piquet to be prized as a good player but not thought sufficiently exciting for the sport which led him to devote his career to motor racing Piquet started kart racing at the age of 14 but because his father did not approve of his racing career he used his mothers maiden name Piquet of French origin and pronounced as PeeKé misspelt as Piket to hide his identity Source Article Nelson Piquet from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30