Nelson Piquet prized as a good player but not thought sufficiently exciting for the sport, which led him to devote his career to motor racing. Piquet dropped out of a University two years into an engineering course in 1974. He was subsequently employed in a garage to finance his career, since he had no financial support from his family Upon returning to Brazil, Piquet and three friends brought a 20 hp cart and participated in Brazilian go-karting (1971 and 1972 national champion) and in the local Formula Super Vee 1976 championship, on the advice of Emerson Fittipaldi, the first Brazilian Formula One
Nelson Piquet Jr. the race. In Spain he finished 12th. Later, at the 2009 German Grand Prix, Piquet out-qualified his teammate for the first time. However, following the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, he still had not scored any points in the season. On 3 August 2009 Piquet confirmed that he had been dropped by Renault. He hit out hard at his former manager and team boss Flavio Briatore calling him his 'executioner' and questioning Briatore's general Formula One knowledge. Piquet also said the Renault boss favoured teammate Fernando Alonso. Renault's test and reserve driver Romain Grosjean replaced Piquet for the rest of the