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Nelson Piquet Souto Maior ((:ˈnɛwsõ piˈke), born August 17, 1952), known as Nelson Piquet, is a Brazilian former racing driver and businessman. Since his retirement, Piquet has been ranked among the greatest Formula One drivers in various motorsport polls.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Formula 1's Greatest Drivers – AUTOSPORT.com )〕 Piquet had a brief career in tennis before losing interest in the sport and subsequently took up karting and hid his identity to prevent his father discovering his hobby. He became the Brazilian national karting champion in 1971-72 and won the Formula Vee championship in 1976. With advice from Emerson Fittipaldi, Piquet went to Europe to further success by taking the record number of wins in Formula Three in 1978, defeating Jackie Stewart's all-time record. In the same year, he made his Formula One debut with the Ensign team and drove for McLaren and Brabham. In 1979, Piquet moved to the Brabham team and finished the runner-up in 1980 before winning the championship in 1981. Piquet's poor performances in 1982 saw a resurgence for 1983 and his second world championship. For 1984–85, Piquet had once again lost chances to win the championship but managed to score three wins during that period. He moved to the Williams team in 1986 and was a title contender until the final round in Australia. Piquet took his third and final championship in 1987 during a heated battle with team-mate Nigel Mansell which left the pair's relationship sour. Piquet subsequently moved to Lotus for 1988–89 where he experienced his third drop in form. He eventually went to the Benetton team for 1990-91 where he managed to win three races before retiring.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/drv-piqnel.html )〕 After retiring from Formula One, Piquet tried his hand at the Indianapolis 500 for two years. He also tried his hand at sports car racing during and after his Formula One career. Piquet is currently retired and runs several businesses in Brazil and manages his sons Nelson Piquet Jr. and Pedro Piquet. ==Early life and career== Piquet was born in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, the son of Estácio Gonçalves Souto Maior, a Brazilian politician. His father moved his family to the new capital, Brasília, in 1960 and became Minister for Health in João Goulart's government (1961–64).〔 〕 Piquet had two brothers, Alexis, and Geraldo, and a sister Genusa. Piquet was the youngest of the children. Piquet started kart racing at the age of 14, but because his father did not approve of his racing career, he used his mother's maiden name Piquet (of French origin and pronounced as "Pee-Kè") misspelt as Piket to hide his identity. His father wanted Piquet to be a professional tennis player and was given a scholarship at a school in Atlanta. Piquet started playing tennis at the age of 11. He won tournaments in Brazil and eventually took a trip to California to test his skill against tougher American players. During his time, he had learned to speak English and greatly matured. His short tennis career saw Piquet to be prized as a good player, but not thought sufficiently exciting for the sport to devote his career to motor racing. Piquet dropped out of a University two years into an engineering course in 1974. He was subsequently employed in a garage.〔 Upon returning to Brazil, Piquet and three friends brought a 20 hp cart and participated in Brazilian go-karting (1971 and 1972 national champion) and in the local Formula Super Vee 1976 championship, on the advice of Emerson Fittipaldi, the first Brazilian Formula One world champion who sold the chassis for the Brazilian Formula Vee champion car with his brother, he arrived in European motor sports hailed as a prodigy. In the 1978 British Formula 3 season he broke Jackie Stewart's record of the most wins in a season.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nelson Piquet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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