In much the same way that Brad Pitt starred in a film that ultimately saw him reduced to quite literally a nobody, Nelson Piquet’s racing career has seen him gradually spinning both figuratively and literally further backwards to - for now at least - the F1 scrapheap. This is a surprising state of affairs for a man who as little as three seasons ago lost out on the GP2 title by just 12 points against James Allen’s best mate.
I’m not going to bore you by rambling on for paragraph after paragraph about his results using statistics that would even make Carol Vorderman nod off. I’ll also assume that by the fact you’re smart enough to have a.) successfully turned a computer on b.) stumbled upon the bursting fountain of insight and knowledge that is Patty, that you know his results in the main have been fantastically crap. So no, instead I’m going to bore you by looking at the human side behind Piquet’s downfall.
The first thing we have to understand about Nelson Piquet is that he has enjoyed a very irregular ascent into F1. What one must also accept is that in order to make it into F1 you must be have three things going for you. They are talent, determination and a Dad with more money than sense. Now, throw into the mix that Piquet’s father is a three time WDC himself and you begin to see that Piquet was born into an advantageous situation for an individual with career aspirations of becoming a racing driver. We’ve summarised this with a medium-rare grilling elsewhere but it’s worth stating again for posterity and amusement.
Piquet’s real problems though have come in the form of the company he keeps, by both accident and design. Where his Dad managed to insulate him from the big bad world of half-decent team mates and equal equipment in junior formulae, in F1 young Nelson found himself in a situation where it was all cards on the table and he was found wanting.
I’ve often questioned the wisdom of keeping your Dad around the paddock and meddling in driver affairs as it seems to cause more problems than achieve anything positive. Anthony Hamilton as his son’s manager tries to play the epitome of cool by hanging round the paddock in his leather bomber, however instead of coming off like a slick Brad Pitt he just looks like an interfering Dad doing a bad Norbert Haug impression. Give me Jenson Button’s Dad any day who appears wrecked on arrival at every event before staggering to the Brawn GP bar and muttering “I’ll have one of everything” to kick off Friday free practice.
I digress. However, the point remains that Piquet apparently insists on his Dad being at every event (there were rumours he got annoyed and upset when his Dad consecutively missed a few races earlier this year) which can’t help but do anything but ramp up the expectant pressure upon a young man’s fragile shoulders. Piquet Senior also intervened greatly in other affairs to do with his son, almost acting as his manager at times which is understandable having put everything on a plate nurtured Nelson’s path into F1. This would be fine if Nelson didn’t already have a manager. Called Flavio Briatore. Who is also his team boss.
Briatore at the best of times is a difficult man to get along with, not least because half the time nobody has a sodding clue what he’s saying. Even the ultra-successful Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso left him alone to impregnate young models after they cleaned up a brace of world championships each under his leadership. So, add on top of this that Briatore as Benetton boss didn’t bother to throw a contract Piquet Senior’s way for 1992 (leading to his retirement) and you can see how even without Piquet being James May behind the wheel, this was always going to lead to a fractious tripartite relationship. On the one hand you’ve got Mini-Me on track more comfortable with Q3 than the impossibly charming and dashing Adrian Sutil and then on the other you’ve got Dr. Evil Piquet Senior in the pits chiming into Briatore’s ear after every race “I don’t know what’s wrong Flav’, he was never this pants when we had an entire factory and workforce built especially for him.” Briatore eventually became tired of Piquet when he appraised him succinctly and without any hint of sarcasm or patronising abuse after declaring, “When a driver lacks results, he opens the book of excuses and begins: the fault is the weather's, a spectator's sunglasses, a spin on the straight, this and that...” Piquet countering back with the following in hindsight probably wasn’t the greatest idea, "Flavio is a business man, but he doesn't understand s*** about F1."
Whilst Briatore may have never dabbled with racing cars himself, for Piquet to say what he said was naïve in the extreme. The Italian David Dickinson may have handed Nelson Piquet his first P45, but he was also first to provide winning cars for race victories and world championships to Schumacher and Alonso. And Alonso is the third person who has caused Piquet such a headache with his debut. Entering F1 debut and not making an embarrassment of yourself is difficult enough without having one of the greatest drivers of the recent generation on the other side of your garage. Alonso is ferociously quick, smart, relaxed under pressure but most importantly of all, loved by Briatore. You get the feeling that if Alonso strutted down the catwalks of Paris for a living, Briatore would be in there immediately such is his love for the man with seventeen eyebrows above each eye. So whilst I’ve defend Piquet a little here as the stick he was being compared to is extremely talented and quick, he was always an absolute mile off Alonso in qualifying and then more so in the races. Britain’s second greatest ever commentator touched on this recently by saying Piquet’s problem is that whilst he’s not expected to be competing with Alonso, Renault do at least expect him to be there to pick up a decent tally of points when Alonso isn’t around to do so. A splendid haul of 0 points for 2009 by Piquet would strongly support Renault’s decision to tear up his contract.
I could spend hours picking gaping holes his hilarious resignation statement but you’ve probably already done that yourself. The main problems with his statement are to do with his constant complaining and pushing the blame onto anyone but himself. Piquet whinges that he completed 1800 less kilometres in testing than Alonso, however he fails to declare that he spent the entire 2007 season doing nothing but testing – in short, he should have been up to pace anyway, particularly since he spent 2008 learning all the tracks and their gravel traps. His lavish and modest praising upon himself for finishing on the podium at Hockenheim in 2008 was cringe worthy at best given he only finished 2nd due to a Boeing 747 sized slice of safety car fortune. The real kicker though in his War & Peace size rivalling epic was moaning about never getting the same equipment as Alonso. Well, when he finally got the upgrades he desired in Hungary that put his car on a par with the Spanish maestro, Alonso stuck the car on pole whilst Nelson qualified 14th. Goodnight Vienna.
So, where next for Piquet? Spectacularly throwing his toys out of the pram by slamming all and sundry in his resignation note has probably not endeared him to other team bosses as they review their 2010 options. Despite competing at lower levels in his own cars, he’s obviously not a terrible driver as witnessed by his plethora of junior formulae titles. His pass on Lewis Hamilton this season was also the right side of impressive. Events and people around him however have conspired to force him out of F1 and he cannot contest that he was not given enough opportunities to express and prove himself. Ultimately, he has to be compared to his GP2 rival Hamilton. Lord Lewis made do with no year of exclusively testing and still came out evens with Alonso in 2007. Piquet however has been trounced at every opportunity by Alonso and only out-qualified him when Alonso went off because he was bored. Despite the rumours, I can’t see even his Dad’s Bill Gates-esque bank account stretching to make a Super Piquet F1, so don’t be surprised if you see Nelson lurking around in DTM next season.
In closing, what’s most telling is that nobody seems to have been particularly bothered by or mourned Piquet’s departure. No team owners have come out saying they’ll scoop him up for 2010, no pundits have cried foul and surprisingly and perhaps most tellingly of all, Briatore hasn’t even bothered slinging any mud back. And why would he when he has his health, wealth and good looks?
Whatever happens, Piquet will always be loved by his loyal following. And we’ll always love his sister.
Trackback(0)
TrackBack URI for this entryComments (9)
Subscribe to this comment's feedWhat´s the point ?
-
- +0
-
-
...
-
- +1
-
-
What a loss
-
- +0
-
-
...
Great article HAND. I look forward to many more from you.
-
- +0
-
-
....
Thanks for your answer.I wish somebody/ all jornalists wrote about The ING Renault Team Fan Site...it seems like the Nelson Piquet jr fans isn´t welcome their anymore. I made a fair post about him, and that I think he react like he does because it´s true everything he said, even if it´s like put to "the hand in the mixer" to be brutalhonest to the media.
Nelson jr did act on his feelings and not his rational intellect. Everybody do misstakes sometimes, and everybody lern from misstakes...hopefully. And the bloody moderators at the RF1TeamFanSite did
delete my post ! ? Everytime I defend Nelshino or got some constructive criticism the moderators delete the posts...he he...Isn´t that strange ? I think Nelshino are very true in what he say about the team.
I´m sure some other "2nd" drivers at Renault have thought the same...
-
- +0
-
-
The difference
-
- +0
-
-
Someone thinks he is good enough for F1...
Who said and I quote "deserves another chance in F1 because he has the talent".
Oh, and in the pros/cons lets not forget the two world-class cars produced by Renault in 2008 and 2009 - patheticly slow at the start of the start of both seasons, and only capable of miracle (cue FIA) wins/poles at the end of them after spending millions in the wind tunnel putting things right, driven only by the fear of Alonso walking out on them. Maybe the blinkers made you miss some of the facts when writing this piece...
-
- +0
-
-
Write comment
| < Prev |
|---|
