Formula 1 has condemned Nelson Piquet after the three-time world champion used a racially offensive term while referring to Lewis Hamilton.
Piquet made the comments while speaking about Hamilton's win at last year's British Grand Prix on a Brazilian podcast. During the race, Hamilton was involved in an incident with Max Verstappen on the opening lap, with the Dutchman ultimately crashing out after making contact with his rival's car.
Hamilton went on to win the race and Piquet twice used a racist term, which is Brazilian slang for the N-word, to describe the Brit when speaking to Brazilian publication Estadao.
In a video released on Monday, Piquet said: "The n******* put the car in the wrong way and didn't let [the other driver swerve]. The n******* put the car in the wrong way on the corner, it's because you don’t know the curve.
"It's a very high curve, there is no way to pass two cars and there's no way you can put the car aside. He did [Verstappen] dirty. His luck was that only the other one was gone."
In a statement, F1 said: "Discriminatory or racist language is unacceptable in any form and has no part in society. Lewis is an incredible ambassador for our sport and deserves respect. His tireless efforts to increase diversity and inclusion are a lesson to many and something we are committed to at F1."
Hamilton also addressed the Piquet's comments on social media, tweeting: "It's more than language. These archaic mindsets need to change and have no place in our sport.
"I've been surrounded by these attitudes and targeted my whole life. There has been plenty of time to learn. Time has come for action."
He also posted a message in Portuguese which translates to "Let's focus on changing the mindset" and wrote "Imagine" when responding to a fan who had tweeted: "What if Lewis Hamilton just tweeted 'Who the f*** is Nelson Piquet?' then closed twitter".
