Drivers

Nelson Angelo Piquet

The son of three-time Formula 1 World Champion Nelson Piquet, Nelson Jr grew up in Monaco, where his mother Sylvia was living. When he was eight he moved to Brazil to live with his father. It was there that he began kart racing and at 16 he left school in Brasilia in order to race fulltime. He gave up karting and moved straight into Formula 3, his father setting up a team called Piquet Sports for him. After a partial season in 2001 he stayed on in F3 in 2002 and won the title. He moved to Britain teh following year and established a British team called Piquet Sports and finished third in the championship at his first attempt with six wins. This attracted the attention of the Williams team, for which his father had won a World Championship in 1986. The following year Piquet won the British title at the age of just 19. He did more tests for Williams.

For 2005 he moved to GP2 with Piquet Sports and won his first race at Spa. He also did some test with the BAR F1 team. His second season in GP2 saw him challenging for the championship but he was beaten by Lewis Hamilton. He was then signed up as the test driver of the Renault F1 team for 2007 and was duly promoted to be a race driver in 2008. His first year was very disappointing with poor performances in qualifying and several incidents in the races. H ecame under increasing pressure to perform better and there were strong rumours that he would be dropped in the midseason. He scored his first points with seventh place at Magny-Cours and in Germany lucked in to second place when all the others in the field had to make extra pit stops. This was enough to give him 12th in the Drivers' title and Renault re-signed him for 2009.