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 eventually won tournaments in Brazil and eventually took a trip to California to test his skill aganist thougher American players. During his time, he had learned to speak English and greatly mature. 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 subsequentely 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.
Read more about this topic: Nelson Piquet
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