Piquet gets historic action at Goodwood.
Nelson Piquet Jr was introduced to historic racing at the annual Goodwood Revival Meeting in the UK, and the young Brazilian certainly enjoyed the action. Piquet was one of the stars of the two-part, 29-car St Mary's Trophy race, which took place at the world's largest historic racing festival.
The race was for production saloon cars that raced between 1950 and 1959, prior to the sport being organised into formats and classes. For that reason, the cars entered into races at the time were mainly for fun and differed greatly in specification.
Nelson Piquet Jr was introduced to historic racing at the annual Goodwood Revival Meeting in the UK, and the young Brazilian certainly enjoyed the action. Piquet was one of the stars of the two-part, 29-car St Mary's Trophy race, which took place at the world's largest historic racing festival.
The race was for production saloon cars that raced between 1950 and 1959, prior to the sport being organised into formats and classes. For that reason, the cars entered into races at the time were mainly for fun and differed greatly in specification.
The 19-year-old leader of the British F3 Championship was in good company in the race, joined by Le Mans winners Derek Bell and Allan McNish, former F1 stars Rene Arnoux and Marc Surer, presenters Tiff Needell (alright he was briefly an F1 star...) and Tony Jardine, and even television star Rowan Atkinson.
The 1958 1489cc MG Magnette ZB saloon car was never going to be a race winner, but on his first attempt at driving a historic car, Nelson still managed to qualify ahead of former F1 test driver Allan McNish and Le Mans winner Richard Attwood.
After a good start in the race itself, Piquet had to retire after four laps when the car overheated. It was later found there was a problem with the head gasket.
Unfortunately, the Frank Sytner-owned 1962 Lotus 24 F1 car that Nelson was due to drive in the Glover Trophy had some mechanical problems and was unable to run, either in Friday's practice session or Sunday's race.
"It's been a good weekend," said Piquet after the action. "I've never been to anything like this before and I've never done any historic racing. It's been good to have a bit of fun and see how it feels to drive cars like that.
Unlike some of the historic racers, Piquet wasn't getting really stuck into the Goodwood races, after all there's a British F3 title for the taking. "I haven't been pushing, I have a Championship to win next weekend and I didn't want to damage a car that belonged to someone else so I didn't take any risks! I am disappointed that I wasn't able to drive the Lotus as it would have been quicker and fun to drive, and it was a shame I couldn't finish the race in the MG. However, I'm really happy I was invited and look forward to coming back in the future."
