Judge Thaissa de Moura Guimarães, from the Court of Justice of the Federal District, denied the embargoes presented by the former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet to the sentence that condemned him to pay R$ 5 million after racist and homophobic speeches directed at Lewis Hamilton in an interview on Youtube.
In a decision published in the Official Gazette of the Court of Justice, she stated that she maintains the judicial act that Piquet’s defense tried to challenge.
In the interview given in 2021, Piquet referred to the Hamilton driver as “neguinho” twice. At the time of the disclosure of the content, the former pilot denied any racial connotation and said that the expression is part of the Brazilian vocabulary and that it was translated wrongly.
Piquet used racist terms to refer to the English driver in a comment about the crash between Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen, son-in-law of the former Brazilian driver, and Hamilton at the British GP in 2021.
The former driver also made homophobic comments, offending former Formula 1 drivers Keke and Nico Rosberg.
In the appeal denied by the Justice, Piquet’s defense claimed the existence of an omission in the decision, pointing out the lack of approach to all aspects of the case.
“With regard to the existence of omission, it should be noted that the judge is not obliged to pronounce
individually on all points and legal devices mentioned by the parties, but only in relation to those that it deems forceful enough to influence the jurisdictional provision that is claimed”, wrote the judge when denying the embargoes.
The compensation of R$ 5 million is for collective moral damages. The amount, if confirmed when the action comes to an end, will be allocated to funds to promote equality against racism and LGBTQIA+ discrimination.
The report was unable to contact Nelson Piquet or his defense.
