- F1 Lewis Hamilton's response after being called "negrito" by Nelson Piquet
Triple Brazilian Formula 1 champion Nelson Piquet must pay 5 million Brazilian reais ($953,050) in moral damages for his racist and homophobic comments against British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, a Brazilian court has ruled.
In an interview in November 2021, Piquet referred to the seven-time world champion as "negrito", commenting on Hamilton's crash at the British Grand Prix with Max Verstappen.
While Hamilton called for action to change "archaic mentalities" after images of the interview surfaced on social media last June.
Piquet, 70, later apologized to the British driver and said his comments had been mistranslated. Piquet's daughter, Kelly, is Verstappen's partner.
In another clip that later surfaced, Piquet used racist and homophobic language against Hamilton in a podcast interview describing how Hamilton lost the 2016 championship to Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton, who received honorary Brazilian citizenship last June, is the sport's only black driver.
The accusations were brought by four human rights groups, including Brazil's National LGBT+ Alliance, who wanted Piquet to pay 10 million Brazilian reais for alleged moral damages.
In his decision, Judge Pedro Matos de Arrudo said that the amount of compensation was given "in the sense that not only the reparative function of civil liability must be appreciated, but also (and perhaps mainly) the punitive function so that, as a society, one day we can free ourselves from the pernicious acts that are racism and homophobia."
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- Lewis Hamilton