Brazil’s triple Formula One champion Nelson Piquet should pay 5 million Brazilian reals ($953,050) in ethical damages for racist and homophobic remarks towards Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, a Brazilian court docket dominated on Friday.
In an interview in November 2021, Piquet used a racial slur, referring to the seven-time world champion, when commenting on Hamilton’s British Grand Prix crash with Max Verstappen.
Hamilton known as for motion to alter an “outdated mindset” after footage of the interview surfaced on social media final June. Piquet, 70, apologized to the British driver and mentioned his feedback had been misinterpreted. Piquet’s daughter Kelly is Verstappen’s accomplice.
In one other clip that later emerged, Piquet used racist and homophobic language towards Hamilton in a podcast interview, describing how Hamilton had missed out on the 2016 championship to Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton, who was awarded honorary Brazilian citizenship final June, is the one black driver within the sport.
The allegations have been made by 4 human rights teams, together with Brazil’s National LGBT+ Alliance, who needed Piquet to pay 10 million Brazilian reals for alleged ethical damages.
In his ruling, Judge Pedro Matos de Arudo famous that the quantity of compensation was awarded “in the sense that one must appreciate not only the remedial function of civil liability, but also (and perhaps primarily) the punitive function”. So that as a society, we are able to sometime be free from pernicious acts like racism and homophobia”.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
