Piquet is sentenced to BRL 5 million for talking about Hamilton – 03/25/2023 – Sport

Former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet was sentenced by Justice to pay R$ 5 million after racist and homophobic speeches directed at Lewis Hamilton in an interview on YouTube. The defense can still appeal the decision.

In the comments, released in 2021, Piquet refers to Hamilton as “neguinho” twice. At the time, the former pilot denied any racial connotation and said that the expression is part of the Brazilian vocabulary and that it was translated wrongly.

After just over a year of the incident, the 20th Civil Court of Brasília published a decision condemning the former pilot this Friday (24).

At the time, Piquet also made homophobic comments in the same interview and offended former Formula 1 drivers Kiko and Nico Rosberg.

The judge responsible for the sentence, Pedro Matos de Arruda, says Piquet’s offense is intolerable and serious. “The offense perpetrated by the defendant can be summarized as follows: it doesn’t matter how much he stands out, it doesn’t matter how good the person is in any aspect. If he’s black and homosexual, he’s just a gay nigga”.

In the sentence, Piquet was ordered to pay BRL 5 million as compensation for collective moral damages that will be allocated to funds to promote equality against racism and LGBTQIA+ discrimination.

Lawyer of the office that sponsored the action, Marlon Reis says that the decision contemplated them. “The magistrate gave a class on discriminatory law, a topic that is rarely talked about in the Brazilian legal system, and although some of our requests were rejected, the sentence was so well founded that he convinced us”, he says.

The office asked for compensation of R$ 10 million for collective moral damages, but said it will not appeal.

The report was unable to contact Nelson Piquet or his defense.