The Brazilian three-times Formula One champion Nelson Piquet must pay 5m reals (£780k) in moral damages for racist and homophobic comments about Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, a Brazilian court ruled on Friday.
In an interview in November 2021, Piquet used a Portuguese racial slur in reference to the seven-times world champion when commenting on Hamilton’s crash with Max Verstappen at the British Grand Prix.
Hamilton called for action to change “archaic mindsets” after footage of the interview surfaced last June. Piquet, 70, apologised to the British driver and said his comments had been mistranslated.
In another clip that surfaced later, Piquet used racist and homophobic language against Hamilton in a podcast interview when describing how Hamilton missed out on the 2016 championship to Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton, who was awarded honorary Brazilian citizenship last June, is the sport’s only Black driver.
The charges were brought by four human rights groups, including Brazil’s National LGBT+ Alliance, which wanted Piquet to pay 10m reals for alleged moral damages.
In his decision, Judge Pedro Matos de Arruda said the amount of compensation was decided on “so that, as a society, we can some day be free from the pernicious acts that are racism and homophobia”.