Controversial ex-Formula One driver Nelson Piquet Jr., will make his American stock car racing debut on February 6th at Daytona International Speedway.
Piquet will be entered in an ARCA stock car fielded by Eddie Sharp Racing. The Brazilian driver was released from the Renault F1 team in the middle of the 2009 season. Shortly after details emerged that Piquet had been ordered by team boss Flavio Briatore the previous year to cause a crash during the Singapore Grand Prix. The resulting safety car period ultimately aided in Piquet’s teammate, Fernando Alonso, wining the race.
An investigation ensued and Flavio Briatore and another team official Pat Symonds, were banned from the sport; Symonds for five years, Briatore for life. Both bans were overturned in a Paris court earlier this month. The FIA, Formula One’s sanctioning body, has yet to say if or when they will appeal that ruling.
Many in the F1 world began to call Piquet ‘tainted’ and unable to find a seat in Formula One. Late last year he appeared in America to test a NASCAR Camping World Series Truck for Red Horse Racing. Recently the team tested Piquet at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida.
Piquet will make his NASCAR debut a week after his ARCA start with Red Horse Racing. Although he has not tested on Daytona’s 2.5-mile surface in a racecar, NASCAR Truck Series champion Mike Skinner took him for some fast laps in a high performance streetcar last week.
“After my first 18 months in F1 did not go as planned I have decided to focus on something different and have chosen to take a route in America,” Piquet recently wrote on his website. “NASCAR is hugely challenging and nobody has ever come in as an outsider and gone on to win it -- it will be the ultimate challenge.”
Piquet’s father, Nelson Piquet Sr., is a three-time Formula One champion.
Comments
Piquet Jr will fit in very well in nascar racing as there are crashes in every race so he'll feel right at home there!
We are already wagering what lap him and Danica wreck.
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