Nelson Piquet career. Piquet is currently retired and runs several businesses in Brazil. He also manages his sons Nelson Piquet Jr. and Pedro Piquet, who are also professional racing drivers. Piquet was born in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, the son of Estácio Gonçalves Souto Maior, a Brazilian physician. His father moved his family to the new capital, Brasília, in 1960 and became Minister for Health in João Goulart's government (1961–64). Piquet had two brothers, Alexis, and Geraldo, and a sister Genusa. Piquet was the youngest of the children. Piquet started kart racing at the age of 14, but
Nelson Piquet wrong in his comments about Ferrari (saying that at 90, Enzo Ferrari had to be a strong man to run a Formula One team), and that he considered Prost to be the world's best driver. Piquet had a dismal 1989 season, driving a Judd V8-powered Lotus which had 125 less hp than the Honda V10s used by McLaren. He (and teammate Satoru Nakajima) once again had no wins and they both even failed to qualify for the 1989 Belgian Grand Prix, Piquet's first non-qualification since the 1982 Detroit Grand Prix. On what was his last attempt to qualify at Spa,