Nelson Piquet banned from British GP after racist remarks towards Lewis Hamilton
Nelson Piquet won't be at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend after using a racial slur to describe Lewis Hamilton.
The Brazilian has been the subject of outrage this week after a 2021 interview emerged, where he twice used the N-word when referring to the British driver. Piquet was speaking after last year's race at Silverstone, where Hamilton was involved in a collision with Max Verstappen, the boyfriend of the 69-year-old's daughter Kelly.
Piquet has since apologised and insisted that his words were lost in translation. However, he already faces an F1 ban from paddocks, but Silverstone have already made their move.
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Piquet, a three-time world champion, remains a member of the British Racing Drivers Club that own Silverstone, but will be officially booted out at a members' meeting next week. And he won't be at the iconic circuit this Sunday to see if Verstappen can extend his championship lead.
In a statement, they wrote: "BRDC Board of Directors has noted that, in a Brazilian podcast last November, Nelson Piquet Senior, an Honorary Member of the BRDC, described Lewis Hamilton using a racially offensive expression in Portuguese. The apology issued yesterday by Mr Piquet Snr has also been noted.
"In view of the BRDC’s zero-tolerance policy towards any act involving or suggesting racism, the BRDC Board has concluded that Mr Piquet Snr's use of racially offensive language to describe a fellow BRDC member (and seven-times World Champion) is unacceptable and represents conduct that is wholly inappropriate for an Honorary Member of the BRDC, notwithstanding his subsequent apology.
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"Accordingly, we have advised Mr Piquet Snr that his membership has been suspended with immediate effect. Following the Club's due process, it is anticipated that the Board will terminate Mr Piquet Sr's membership at a board meeting to be held after the required seven-day notice period."
For all the vilification of Piquet this week, he has seemingly found one ally though in former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. In a bizarre interview on Good Morning Britain, the 91-year-old suggested Hamilton, 37, should just "get over it" and move one.
That however, was child's play compared to his words on Vladimir Putin. Ecclestone insisted he would "take a bullet" for his good friend, and argued he had only ordered war on Ukraine because he believed it was the right thing to do.
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