Nelson Piquet criticizes Ayrton Senna

Undoubtedly, Sao Paulo is where Nelson Piquet's words hurt the most. His criticisms. Because there, in the metropolis, Ayrton Senna continues to be, 21 years after his death, the greatest source of pride. Piquet says in statements collected by Uol Esporte: "Throughout his career, Senna was a... He always played dirty. He won the F3 championship by colliding with Martin Brundle in the last race at Brands Hatch. He did the same with Alain Prost in 1990 to win the title. It was because of his way of acting that I showed him the ring finger in that race".

Piquet refers to the 1986 Hungarian GP, where he criticized Ayrton's driving. "Did you see that overtaking? Did you see what happened in the previous laps? On the first attempt, I went on the inside and he pushed me towards the dirty part of the track. On the second attempt, he tried to do the same. But instead of going to the right, I went to the left, which is something he didn't expect," explains Nelson.

Many say that mentioning Ayrton is the best way to ignite the fuse in Piquet. "In motorsport, you have to be clean. Want to be a champion? Perfect. But you have to be sportsmanlike. And he was not clean on the track," comments Piquet, world champion in 1981, 1983, and 1987.

The controversy is not new. In 1988, for example, Piquet said that Senna was homosexual and that he had sexual relationships with his team mechanics. Later, he had to retract before a court attended by Ayrton himself. And that antipathy is not exclusive to Piquet Sr, but it also extends to his own son, Nelsinho. The current Formula E driver and former teammate of Fernando Alonso at Renault, believes that Senna would not have achieved as many successes if he had landed in Formula 1 ten years earlier. "If we took Senna and put him ten years earlier, he probably would not have won any championships. When he entered F1, he had many retirements because he always went to the limit. He was a super-fast driver, made very few mistakes, but from a mechanical point of view, he was very weak," said Nelsinho three years ago.

These statements are in line with those of his father. Darts that, as reported by Uol Esporte, also target Williams, where the Brazilian coincided with Nigel Mansell. "It was an English team, and many people there wanted to see a British driver become champion. We lost the 1986 World Championship, and the same could have happened in 1987. It was a more political than sporting championship," he claims. Sounds like McLaren in 2007. But that's another story.