Dodgy Business

Over the past three or four years I've had cause to go to quite a few Jerez F1 tests. Thanks to the likes of Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Michael O'Leary it's no great hardship, and not very expensive either.

I can hop a Squeezyjet from Liverpool to Malaga, jump in a hire car and be at Jerez in a little over two hours. The return is late night, giving you time to finish the day at Jerez and be back in the house a little after midnight.

If time's not an issue on the way out, continue down the Costa del Golf/Crime (delete as applicable) a little further and have a look at Sotogrande, Eddie Jordan's playground for the past 20 years or more.

Carry on as far as you can go and you get to Tarifa, which is windy as hell and now quite trendy and expensive as, naturally, it's caught on with the surfing/boarding crowd.

It's the kind of place Nelson Piquet Jr would look at home and, fond of his wake boarding, appreciate. I thought about that as I found myself about 10 behind him in the queue for a Jerez-Stansted flight (I had to collect a motorhome) after a test last year.

Nelson Piquet Jr © XPB/LAT

He'd done his 100 or so laps and was now just ahead of Jean and Fred in the Ryanair line. Fred had been watching A Place In The Sun, which had told him that the Costa de la Luz - Jerez territory - was the next big thing. Think Marbella.

They'd come down for a quick butcher's and were blissfully unaware they were surrounded by half the F1 paddock and that the lean, dark, good-looking guy in front of them was a potential GP star and son of a triple world champion.

This is the non glamorous side of F1 that most don't appreciate. And there's much more of it than the glitz, glory and adulation of Monte Carlo. At last week's Renault launch, Nelson Jr explained that he liked England but that he might be leaving fairly soon. And he was straightforward about it. It wasn't to escape uncontrollable adulation from the likes of Fred and Jean, it was obviously for tax reasons.

"I'm used to the bad weather and the food now," he smiled at last week's Renault launch. "Getting in traffic at Heathrow and waiting in queues for hours and hours at Stansted I certainly won't miss, but I'll still spend as much time as I can in England, close to the (Enstone) factory. Actually, I'm still a rookie at all this tax stuff, but it's the area where my Dad helps me most nowadays."

Nelson Sr, apparently, used to get around tax by living on a boat and basically floating around in places that didn't count as anywhere. I'm sure a few loopholes have been closed since then, but those that need to worry about such things can always be relied upon to find a few more.

Nelsinho is clearly looking forward to his F1 race debut with Renault, but last week he was clearly trying to offload as much pressure as possible. The media, obviously, will be looking to see if he can do to Fernando Alonso what old GP2 rival Lewis Hamilton did to the double champ last year.

In fairness, that's a big ask. Nelson hasn't had as much seat time as Lewis, despite being the test driver last year. The new testing limitations and the presence of a rookie race driver in Kovalainen, meant that Piquet did not get as much mileage as he might have done. He sees this month as key in progressing to a race-ready stage by Melbourne.

In terms of his expectations, he's not keen to big himself up. Quite the opposite in fact: "I want to learn as much as I can, do my best and stay as close as possible to Fernando in the championship. Melbourne will be quite tough. I've been there but obviously never raced there and Renault doesn't have any simulators.

"This year I've driven just two days and they were more shakedowns. February will give me a better idea of how I am compared to Fernando. But I'll also be doing pit stop practice and race simulation because I've not done that kind of thing yet.

"You never know what's going to happen but it's my first year and I don't have to prove anything. I'm going to be looking at Fernando's data, listening to his comments and learning. I just need to do my job, keep it calm and hopefully score points. I know the European tracks and love Silverstone and Spa - the quick circuits.

Nelson Piquet Jr tests the Renault R28 in Valencia © XPB/LAT

"Last year Heikki (Kovalainen) was pushing really hard and maybe he rushed it a little. I have a double world champion, the only one in F1, next to me. He's one of the best drivers on the grid and I have to take it easy. If I can follow him, that will be good.

"I want to learn and make progress through the year. But when I get into rhythm and show I can set his pace, it will be a different story."

'When', notice, not 'if ...'

And if that should happen sooner rather than later, as it did with Hamilton?

"The most important thing is having a boss who can manage both drivers. I don't know for sure but I think one of the problems (at McLaren) was a boss who was not able to control both. But I think Flavio is perfect at knowing how to put drivers in their right place and I don't think he'd allow it.

"I think Lewis is excellent and he did a perfect first season, scoring the same points as Fernando. But the team didn't do a good job. They didn't win the championship and they could have done."

Being called Piquet was obviously no handicap to Nelson Jr's progress but, as he points out, you still have to do the job.

"Racing fathers know what to do, they know if the son is good enough and will tell them whether to quit or not. Maybe there's something in the genes. I hope so! It's not always there though and you know from early on. You tend to either love racing or it does nothing for you.

"I have two younger brothers from my father's last marriage. One of them loves it, already looks good and could spend all day every day at a track. The other one is not interested at all.

"My Dad's been one of the most important people, sure, just like Nico (Rosberg). He's given me the right directions and contacts. It's important to have someone you can believe in. If he says race in England you go there with no doubts.

"But since GP2 he's been more distant. The circuit, for us, is the office, and you don't bring parents to the office."

A good philosophy maybe. Some bring parents and a whole lot more!

Bernie Ecclestone, as Brabham boss, took Nelson Sr to two world championships in the early eighties. It is said that Bernie was very keen to have the Piquet name back in F1. Renault Sport MD Flavio Briatore is, of course, Bernie's mate and close business associate. Nelson Jr though, plays down any kind of special relationship with Flav.

Nelson Piquet Jr and Flavio Briatore © XPB/LAT

"Last year I had no real relationship with him," he says. "With Flavio you only speak to him when you have something to say and, doing limited testing, that wasn't much. Go up to him and and say, 'hi, how are you?' and he probably won't have that much time for you.

"Also, Flavio loves Fernando and it would be a stupid thing to do to get into a fight with him. But the day I have a chance to win a race, I will win a race ..." Shrewd.

Despite his background, Nelsinho is not steeped in motor racing to the exclusion of all else. When his father had his leg-shattering, career-ending shunt at Indy in 1992, he was just six.

"I don't remember it really, I was too young. I didn't even watch races on TV at the time and I started (in karts) in '94." That, of course, was the year Aytron Senna was lost to the world. You might have imagined that would have had a huge impact but you'd be wrong.

"I didn't really follow motor racing," he says. "I read my father's story and Emerson Fittipaldi's and they are amazing, but I never read about Ayrton. With my Dad and Emerson there was no internet, no daily flights, and they lived on their own in the cold, bad weather."

Again he talks about England as if it was the North Pole!

"They suffered to get into F1. My father was a mechanic at 18 and in F1 at 26. Amazing. From what I hear about Ayrton it was a bit different, with his father's backing and a better grounding to Europe. It's different today but I think Emerson and my father had incredible stories - the kind that won't happen again."

And now Nelson stands to add his own chapters to the family book. His first season impact will depend a lot on Renault's R28. As Pat Symonds acknowledges (see Autosport magazine this week), a team really must give a rookie driver a consistent, confidence-inspiring chassis.

Do that, and he can scale the heights Lewis Hamilton achieved if he's good enough. Give him a dog and he'll throw it at the scenery trying to prove he's an ace, as poor Kovalainen did for three months.

The one consolation for Fernando Alonso if his Renault isn't quite a McLaren, is that an inexperienced team-mate is likely to struggle with it a weeny bit more. Which will be a bonus for Fernando because, sure as hell, he doesn't want 2007 over again and, with a bloke called Piquet, he might just get it ...