Nelson Piquet Jr. was interviewed by the Brazilian press a few days ago, and after leaving several messages to his great Formula E rival, Lucas di Grassi, he also wanted to leave some illustrious words about his recent spell with Rebellion at the WEC
Nelson Piquet Jr. does not stop surprising with his statements against rivals or teams. A few days ago, the Brazilian journalist of Grande Premio, Rodrigo Mattar, interviewed the Panasonic Jaguar Racing driver in Rio de Janeiro. Among many topics that were touched in the conversation, as well was the rivalry with Lucas di Grassi from which he left some messages for his compatriot, he also wanted to relate his feelings with Rebellion in the WEC.
Piquet Jr. participated in the entire 2017 season of the WEC in the LMP2 category with Vaillante Rebellion in the Oreca 07 #13. He participated in all races except the fourth round at the Nürburgring, and drived for the second time the 24 hours of Le Mans in Prototypes. After a ninth place in his debut, in 2017 the Rebellion #13 finished in the podium, but a technical irregularity of his team provoked their disqualification from the race.
According to Piquet, the episode in Le Mans was one of the reasons that made him explode against his team: “It was a fucking shit. Mathias Beche did not open his mouth to speak anything because he depended on the job. He did not speak anything, he did not claim”, commented the Brazilian exalted.
With the possibility of title of his teammates in the car #31, things went worse. The typical grotesque expression of the champion of the Formula E of 2014/2015 was explained it that way: “I told everyone to fuck themselves. I left the team because of that. On several occasions I had to lift my foot to take care of the tires, driving slowly. Therefore, I opted for the option to change the WEC for the Stock Car, because I was going to learn a lot more and financially it is much better. In Rebellion, they privileged the other car with three engineers and ours had one and the other one was only part-time. They did everything possible to invest in the other car when they began to have advantage in the championship in depressing of ours”, he affirmed forcefully.
The second part of the season things were even worse, and according to Piquet, in Fuji everything ended up being completely destroyed: “The other car had a huge luck with a very good engine at the second half of the season while ours was below average. That made a very big difference. From this point on, the team wanted us to help them and that’s when the confusion started and the enviroment was very bad and that worsened in Fuji. David was able to report the team if they did that and then we were harmed. They misjudged the calibration of our car ‘unintentionally’ and the car was “slow”, highlighted Piquet with an annoying expressiveness.
To all this, in Japan had an issue with his teammate, Bruno Senna, which still increased the pressure within the structure of Rebellion. Despite that, Piquet had good words for his countryman, quite the opposite his father did with the Senna family in his day.
“In Japan, Bruno threw me off track at the first corner. If I were in his place, in the situation of fighting for a title, I would do the same things. Bruno is a very good guy. We are not closer because now we have taken different paths, we will be in different categories and we will see very little. He gets a little defensive, I think, because of all of my father’s attacks on Ayrton Senna in the past. But I like him a lot. It has much more to offer than other drivers”, continued “Nelsinho” in his explanation.
Finally, he was asked about the possibility of returning to the category. For this 2018 Piquet plans are to finish the Formula E world championship and do a full season at the Brazilian Stock Car, where he will meet Di Grassi. Even so, he is looking for the possibility of racing, again, the 24 hours of Le Mans: “With a good car it is possible that we can participate in the race. We are negotiating. At the beginning, they wanted me to do also Spa and a test day at Paul Ricard. But I will not do it. The priority is to be in the Stock, which limits my participation in the World Resistance. Even so, we can close an agreement to run again in the LMP2″, he concluded.
