🇧🇷 Nelson Piquet

Nelson Piquet was a Formula 1 professional who won the World Drivers' Championship three times; 1981, 1983, and 1987. Across 205 starts in the sport from 1978 to 1991, he recorded 23 wins and 60 podiums. His Racer Rating of 5,932 places him in the established professional band; a driver with a full seat at the top level and capable of winning races in the strongest fields available. That rating reflects a career spent largely among the very best drivers of his era, though the head-to-head records against his most frequent rivals tell a story of inconsistent results against the very strongest. Against Alain Prost, a five-time Formula 1 champion and a generational driver, Piquet finished ahead in 26 races but behind in 56 across 82 shared starts. Against Ayrton Senna, another generational champion, he won 18 head-to-head finishes to 42 losses across 60 races. His stronger records came against drivers of slightly lower standing; he beat Riccardo Patrese 42 times to 20, and Nigel Mansell 23 to 30, though Mansell would later win the 1992 Formula 1 championship.[1]

Piquet's primary team was Brabham, for which he made 91 starts and secured his three title wins. The stability of that relationship through the 1980s anchored his championship years. Away from Formula 1, his record is sparse. Late in his career, from 2021 to 2022, he competed in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North American series for Ansa Motorsports, making 14 starts and scoring one win and three podiums across six rounds before finishing ninth in the final standings. That amateur-level endurance racing represented a sharp contrast to his decades in single-seaters and carried no bearing on his established professional standing. Piquet retired from racing in 2022.[2]