Nelson Piquet Jr made some comments about the late Ayrton Senna which rubbed some people wrong. The comments suggested that Senna would not be as successful as he was had he driven in today’s cars.
Piquet is saying that those comments were misconstrued. In fact Piquet wants everyone to know the following.
“I said that if Ayrton had raced 10 years earlier, he would not have had the success that my father had.
“They were different times and realities. At the turn of the ’70s to the ’80s, reliability was much lower and drivers had to have much more of a mechanical side.
“It was no accident that my father developed the tire heaters, active suspension, improved the turbo engines and worked on several other solutions that everyone knows about.
“Senna came a little later, when it was possible to drive almost all of the time at 100 percent performance without needing to be a development driver as before.
“Like me, Ayrton arrived in Europe concerned only about driving. He was a super fast driver and the best one in terms of pure speed.
“But he didn’t have the same repertoire for the mechanical side as did the previous generation, and so didn’t have to worry so much about preserving the gearbox, the engine.
“It’s obvious: each had its own reflection as the product of his time. Each did what was needed to dominate his era, and each time required different things.
“It’s as simple as that. And not controversial,” Piquet concluded.
— courtesy Speed.com
I am not exactly sure how these comments will sit with anyone. It appears that Piquet is now suggesting that his father and older racers were better because they knew both sides of the car.
Piquest Jr is the 27 year old son of Formula One legend Nelson Piquet. The younger Piquet has won two NASCAR events ths year. He won a Nationwide race at Elkhart Lake and recently won the Camping World Truck Series event at Michigan.
Do you think these comments controversial?
