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Nelson Piquet - A Career Filled with Successes
Nelson Piquet Souto Maior or as most people know him, Nelson Piquet, was born on August 17, 1952 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Nelson’s father was a Brazilian government minister and did not approve his sons racing career, and so forced his son to use his mother’s maiden name Piquet instead. His mother’s maiden name is French origin and pronounced as “Pee-Ke’” but was purposefully misspelt to hide his identity.
Nelson Piquet is a Brazillian racing driver who was successfully was Formula One world champion in 1981, 1983 and 1987. There are very few other racing drivers who have been able to win at least three world championships in all of Formula One’s history. Other then Nelson there was Juan Manuel Fangio (5), Jackie Stewart, Jack Brabham, Alain Prost (4), Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher (7).
Nelson was Brazilian go-karting national champion in 1971 and 1972 as well as local super-V 1976 champion. After succeeding there he took British Formula 3 on and was considered a prodigy during the 1978 season when he broke Jackie Stewart’s record of wins in one season. From there he was promoted to Formula One position. Piquet was indeed talented; he and Michael Schumacher are the only two drivers, between 1980 and 2000, to have won world titles for teams other then Williams and McLaren, who were the reigning forces during that time period.
In 1986 Piquet saw himself in direct and intense competition with his rival, Nigel Mansell. Both had similar characters, highly-strung and delicate temperaments. As top drivers in the same team there was indeed intense competition for the title to the point that they would deprive each other of points rather then working together. This led to Alain Prost winning the most ferocious disputed championships Formula one had ever had.
Since 2000 Nelson Piquet has helped and supported his son Nelson Angelo Piquet, who has for two seasons been the leading GP2 driver and has noted by the media as a future star in Formula One. Nelson Junior has already been signed on by Renault as one of their test drivers for the 2007 season.
