Why it's wrong to hate Nelson Piquet Jr

Not everybody hates Nelson Piquet Jr. But many do love to hate him. The abuse fired at him last month in response to his attempt to return to Formula 3 in the Pau Grand Prix did not go unnoticed.

It prompted Autosport.com editor Glenn Freeman to ask what makes a deliberate crash OK - and why past cheating antics of some of Formula 1's greatest drivers are forgiven, but not the 30-year-old Brazilian. That article was "not something written in defence or support of Piquet". But this is.

Many cannot forgive Piquet for his deliberate crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. It's the elephant in the room that makes many believe Piquet's subsequent journey from F1 exile to Formula E champion, via career purgatory, is insignificant.

Nobody likes a cheat, I've heard it said of him. And nobody likes a snitch.

But this isn't a playground. This is professional sport with high stakes, high rewards, and very high pressure. In 2008, the pressure came in the form of serious doubt over whether Renault would retain him after a difficult rookie campaign, as well as doubts over the team's continued existence.

Piquet must not be completely exonerated of responsibility. He did something dangerous and illegal and covered it up until personal circumstances prompted a confession a year later.

But it is ludicrous that the 30-year-old is still being punished for his actions as a 23-year-old under huge duress.

I'm 23 years old and if my superiors told me I had to do something illegal, at first thought I would not do it. But if I felt I had to or I would be sacked and my colleagues and hundreds of other people could also lose their jobs? I cannot answer that with genuine conviction. Could you?

Everybody has skeletons in the closet - it wouldn't take long for anyone to be able to remember something they've done that they weren't proud of, or a time in which they've been in a lose-lose situation.

"There's always going to be ignorant comments," says Piquet. "If it wasn't for that incident it was 'ah, he was fired from F1 for being a shit driver'. That's always going to be the case.

"A lot of people have no idea of the world we live in and what we go through, the pressures. We live nearly a fantasy world, travelling and making the money we do. Compared to a normal day-to-day job it's very, very different.

"It's close to impossible for a normal person who has a normal job, they work from 9 to 5, go home, maybe travel once a year and within their own country, to be able to understand the things that go on in the crazy world.

"So there's no point in arguing with them, it's very hard for them to understand. It doesn't affect me. There are a lot of people that are that way.

"If it wasn't for that they'd probably pick something else to complain about."

Which raises an interesting question: is it just Piquet?

Like many who carry the weight of a famous surname, expectation was rife for Piquet from a young age and there was a perception that he was a spoiled kid who was waltzing into F1. There were many who felt his place was unmerited. And that he underdelivered when he got there, scoring just the one lucky podium at Hockenheim and being comprehensively outperformed at Renault by Fernando Alonso.

"People think he had everything, that he was obliged to win," says Felipe Vargas, a friend and former team boss of Piquet at the Piquet Sports team. "I see it from another side. He suffered more pressure, he had the focus of the press and other competitors - everything was on him. It was very difficult to handle at his young age."

A name only gets you so far. Nelson Piquet Sr said in the build-up to his son's first F3 race in 2001 that only F1 would do, so that additional stress was evident from the beginning.

"It was positive when he was there but the level of pressure raised on Nelson's side," Vargas says of Sr's continued presence throughout Piquet's time in British F3 and GP2. "He put it on himself because of his father."

Of course the real benefit for Piquet as a young driver was the backing his father could provide. Vargas says "I don't think we had more money or better equipment", but not many have the luxury of an entire team set up for their own benefit. Not many can test relentlessly at a hired airfield as Piquet supposedly did before racing in SudAm F3.

Motorsport's financial dependency creates jealousy. It's lunacy to think that anyone going up against those with bigger pockets would actually spurn opportunities if the cards were dealt more in their favour. And that makes it hypocritical to fire shots at a driver like Piquet just because he had those opportunities as a youngster.

"There's haters everywhere," Piquet says when asked if he thinks the insults are because people have an issue with him. "It's just human nature to have jealous people, frustrated people who are going to do these kind of things."

Ultimately, how different does that make Piquet to any driver with substantial backing? Especially as money doesn't guarantee success, it just presents an opportunity. The 2004 British Formula 3 title and several wins in GP2 prove Piquet was deserving of his place in F1 regardless of his surname or family ties.

If Piquet was someone else, then perhaps the overriding feeling after Crashgate, or his general time in F1 as a #2 driver in what was clearly a one-car team, would be one of sympathy for him not getting a true chance to prove himself.

"Renault destroyed his personality and capacity to be a fast driver," Vargas insists. "It's good to see he's strong again, but I'm always feeling what he could have been. On this side it makes me sad. He could be one of the greats."

So why does all this matter? Simply put, because Singapore not only rendered him an F1 outcast, but has stuck with him many years later.

Piquet's FE title success last year was not the sort of F1-level triumph that had been hoped for when he started his career in South America, but it was a damn sight more than could probably have been predicted in mid-2009 when he was booted out by Renault.

But it almost never happened.

"You have to come back two years ago," explains Adrian Campos, who was charged with helping assemble the technical team and driver line-up for Team China Racing ahead of the first FE season. "I put my prestige on the table and said 'what we need is Nelson'. The image of Nelson was the last thing he did in Formula 1. It was not easy."

The Spaniard "fought very, very hard not to have no as an answer" but several others did not - Piquet says he spoke to several teams about joining the grid, but "political pressure" meant those talks came to nothing.

"Nelson was in a moment he needed a little bit of help," says Campos. "He wanted to show to all the people the real Nelson never left. I understood that he needed this opportunity.

"I was convinced if we could give him this moment he would do the rest. This was the reason for me to fight. It was a human situation."

That Piquet had so few people in his corner is disappointing. Motorsport could do with a few more drivers like him, and that's the other issue with the lingering negativity towards him - it detracts from the sort of super-nomadic career others should embrace.

When news broke that Piquet was joining Carlin's F3 team for Pau, the responses included several criticising Piquet over Singapore. When news broke his entry had been rejected, some criticised Piquet for daring to enter a championship that isn't designed for experienced drivers.

That is bizarre. So many competitors pay lip service to the claim they love driving, because when you are picking up a nice wedge and only race one thing all year it's a very easy claim to make.

Being a professional racing driver is a dream job to so many but Piquet's the one of few who seems to embrace it in the way everyone wants their heroes to. He brought money to the table to secure his torpedoed Pau F3 drive, he didn't demand a salary from Carlin.

"If you get a driver who has iRacing at home, one day he'll do a DTM race, one day he'll do IndyCar, one day he'll do rallying," Piquet says. "In real life drivers don't want to, for whatever reason. Maybe they don't want to risk being beat, they only want to be in their comfort zone.

"For me, no. I take real life as if it was on a game. I don't want to regret something in the future that I had the opportunity to do [and didn't take]. I want to take these opportunities.

"Hopefully when I retire I can say I've driven every kind of car."

Piquet can be difficult to warm to, but his enthusiasm builds when he talks about the various series he's competed in and what he wants to do in the future. It's actually quite infectious. So when he says he loves racing, believe him.

Maybe one issue is that it is difficult to see that side of him. Motorsport affords a very narrow lens through which those on the outside can view drivers at the best of times. That's not helped by the barrier Piquet tends to have up, though that's hardly surprising given his experience of people searching for soundbites - like how his personal rivalry with Lucas di Grassi was played up last year as they fought for the FE title.

Another side of Piquet that maybe puts a few noses out of joint is that he does not mince his words if you've pissed him off or you're in the process of doing so. But good on him. Isn't that the sort of character so many people claim F1, and motorsport in general, is filtering out? Isn't that exactly what people love Kimi Raikkonen for?

It's odd that, from experience, few people seem to be willing to give Piquet a chance. And that is so peculiar because sport is supposed to be about the human stories and redemption is one of the greatest plotlines of all.

"I know how bad it was for him," says Vargas. "It took years for him to recover. Last year we had dinner together in Brazil and I was surprised, it seemed like he changed from one day to the other.

"I was surprised how much more confident and mature he was. And how far behind him all those upsets in F1 were. That made me so happy."

Piquet is at peace with his career trajectory, living the dream arguably more than any other racing driver around, and more power to him for that - he isn't worried about his F1 ignominy because "that happened a long time ago, I was young and I've come back and proven myself".

That's the real moral of the Piquet story. He's rebuilt himself completely from the shattered remains of an F1 career and his public crucifiction.

If you still can't give him credit as a racing driver, at least give him credit for that.