If his father had had his way, Nelson Piquet would have become a tennis player. However, he opted for motorsport and enjoyed success at a young age, laying the foundation for an impressive career.

‘When I was 11 or 12 years old, my father told me that he would grant me any wish in life if I would ever beat him at tennis,’ Nelson Piquet recalled in an interview about his childhood. Tennis was an important part of his father Eistácio Gonçalves Souto Maior’s, life, alongside his position as a senior civil servant. When young Nelson won a tennis tournament in his native Brazil at the age of 16, he received a car as his prize – which he couldn’t use for the time being, as he was still too young to drive. Instead, his father arranged for him to spend a year with a host family in San Francisco to further improve his tennis skills. Most importantly, however, the youngster also improved his English language skills there. After returning to his home country, he and three friends bought a go-kart and found karting more enjoyable than tennis. This wasn’t met with enthusiasm at home. Therefore, to avoid attracting too much attention, he competed under the maiden name of his mother, who was of French descent – as ‘Nelson Piquet’ or just ‘PK’. Even so, his motorsport ambitions didn’t remain secret for long. ‘When my father found out what I was doing, he immediately made it clear to me that I should never ask him for money for racing,’ he recalled.

Even without financial help from the family, however, he quickly became successful. In 1972 Piquet won the two-litre class of the Brazilian Sportscar Championship, and two years later he celebrated his first victory in Brazilian Formula Super Vee at the Cascavel circuit. He finished the 1974 season in fourth place, two points behind future BMW factory driver Ingo Hoffmann and four points behind title winner Marcos Troncon who, like Piquet, raced a Polar chassis. Sadly, his father didn’t live to see this, having died of a heart attack in September 1974. Piquet had dropped out of his engineering studies in his second year and instead taken a job in a garage, as he needed money for racing.

In the 1975 Super Vee season, Piquet’s best result was a fifth place in Goiânia, and he finished just 14th in the drivers’ standings. However, for 1976 he secured good backing from lawyer Eduardo Prado, and promptly won the Brazilian title. Formula 3 was the logical next step, but for that, Piquet had to move to Europe. His compatriot, two-time Formula 1 World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi, gave him valuable advice and also secured several sponsors …

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by René de Boer

Photographs: Getty Images, McKlein

Nelson Piquet spent a little over seven years, the majority of his Formula 1 career, driving for the Brabham team. It was the Brazilian’s most successful era, with 13 of his 23 grand prix wins and the drivers’ titles in 1981 and 1983. His relationship with team owner Bernie Ecclestone was not always easy, but for many years, the combination of Piquet and Brabham was a perfect match.

After his Formula 1 debut with Ensign at the German Grand Prix and three outings with Bob Sparshott’s BS team, Ecclestone had seen enough to give Piquet a chance to race a third car alongside regular drivers Niki Lauda and John Watson for the 1978 season finale in Montreal. It was done so with an eye towards a possible permanent seat for the following season. Domingos Piedade had established the connection between Piquet and the Brabham boss. Ecclestone, who immediately signed his new driver to a three-year contract, considered Piquet just as talented as Stuart Lewis-Evans, Jochen Rindt, Carlos Pace or Niki Lauda: ‘All special people,’ said the Briton, who hoped to fulfil his dream of winning a first world title with Piquet.

Brabham was still able to compete at the front of the field in 1978, with Lauda scoring seven podiums – including victories at Anderstorp with the revolutionary fan car and at Monza – while Johns Watson scored another three podiums. But in 1979 the team, which had moved to a new factory at the corner of Cox Lane and Roebuck Road in Chessington, struggled considerably.

Unreliability was often the issue. Piquet retired 11 times in the 15 grands prix. Not always due to technical problems, but also because of accidents, such as at the season opener in Argentina, where he was involved in a crash on the opening lap and was left injured, or at the second race in Brazil, where he collided with Williams driver Clay Regazzoni. There was also a collision with Regazzoni in the Curva Grabnde at Monza, where the entire rear of Piquet’s Brabham was torn off. The driver, luckily, escaped unharmed. There were, however, also some bright spots. In qualifying Piquet was often able to demonstrate his speed, and on several occasions he was even faster than his teammate Lauda. With a fourth-place finish at the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, he scored his first world championship points.

During the season the team also changed engines. After the race at Monza, Ecclestone opted for the Ford-Cosworth DFV V8 instead of the Alfa Romeo V12, as he was annoyed by the Italian manufacturer’s plan to start its own factory team. And the internal turmoil didn’t end there; during the Montreal weekend, Lauda spontaneously announced his retirement, stating that he no longer saw any point in ‘driving in circles’. With the three points in Zandvoort, Piquet finished his first full F1 season in 15th place in the drivers’ standings …

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by René de Boer

Photographs: Cahier, BMW, McKlein

As the saying goes, ‘success has many fathers’. For 19 years, former driver Guy Fréquelin headed the sports department at Citroën, and he can therefore claim to be the father of numerous successes, first in rally raids and then in world rallying. He worked with greats like Ari Vatanen, Jacky Ickx, Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz, and enabled the exceptionally talented Sébastien Loeb to make his debut as a factory rally driver. In an interview with AUTOMOBILSPORT, Fréquelin reflects on that era.

‘This brings back a lot of memories,’ says Fréquelin as he enters the exhibition hall in Flin, France, where 25 cars showcase Citroën’s 60 years of motorsport history. As the brand’s sporting director, he played a decisive role in shaping a very successful chapter of this history, with five titles in rally raid and numerous wins and titles in rallying. ‘The fact that my picture is now hanging here in the exhibition shows that I am part of this history. I am grateful for that, but I guess it also means that I am old. And I don’t feel that old yet!’

AUTOMOBILSPORT: How did you join Citroën?

Fréquelin: I was at the reconnaissance for the Rallye des Cevennes, I had just won the French Rallycross Championship with the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, and at the same time I was driving a few rallies with a Peugeot 309. I got a call from Jean Todt, who was Peugeot’s sporting director at the time, asking if I wanted to take part in the Dakar Rally with a 205 Turbo 16, supporting Ari [Vatanen] and Jacky [Ickx], who were in the 405. I asked for 48 hours to think about it, which he granted me. ‘And there’s something else,’ he said. ‘Citroën needs a new sporting director because Guy Verrier is retiring, and they want to get into international motorsport. Can you think of anyone who might be interested?’

Two days later, Todt called again, and I agreed to do the Dakar. ‘And what about Citroën?’ he asked. I had an answer for that as well – I said I was interested in doing it myself. He was stunned at first, since he hadn’t expected that. But I had said to myself, I’m 45 now, there are only three manufacturers in France, two of which already have a sporting director, so if an opportunity like this comes along, I don’t want to miss it! We then talked for an hour and a half, two hours. It was like old times, because he had been my co-driver for two years in the past. And after the two hours, he said, ‘I think you’ve got what it takes. Jacques Calvet [Editor’s note: then head of the PSA Group] is coming to the Dakar Rally, so we’ll suggest it to him there.’ We met there for dinner, Calvet responded positively to the proposal, and after another meeting with Citroën brand managers Xavier Karcher and Bernard Rocher, I got the job. I returned from Dakar on 16 January, and on 1 February I was introduced to the 30 people who made up Citroën Compétition at the time, which later became Citroën Sport. That’s how I got started.

AUTOMOBILSPORT: What was the job like in those early years? …

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by René de Boer

Photographs: Rebocar, McKlein

In the summer of 2025, Barrie Smith was reunited with his former Lola T70 Mk3B. Having just advertised the car through his company, Mitchell Curated, Ben Mitchell was able to get in touch with Barrie’s son Max. They agreed to bring the car to Margate, where Barrie has lived for some 50-odd years, to surprise Barrie and to listen to his memories from an exciting period of his life in sportscar racing.

The Lola T70 was first raced as an open-top car in 1965, a successor to the Mk6, and in later versions, such as the Mk3, a roof was added. Having started the Lola company in 1954, Eric Broadley’s concern was now fully fledged in customer racing, and more than 100 T70s were built and raced around the world, including in the renowned Can-Am Series in the US and at Le Mans.

Snapshot from a golden era in sportscar racing

‘You could go to Lola, buy a car and compete from club sport level up to against the works teams of Porsche and Ferrari on world championship-level and at the Le Mans 24 Hours,’ says Ben Mitchell, an experienced racer of historic cars himself. ‘Barrie Smith and many others were able to go racing because back then it was a different financial equation. You could finance your racing through start money from event organisers and prize money.’ That’s how Smith was able to go racing on international level with modest means. His professional career was in commercial photography.

After a pedal car around 1951, Smith’s first project was a Lotus Super Seven in 1963, built from kit at Jacksons Garage in Westgate in 1963 under the watchful eye of Cyril Jackson. Once completed, Smith found there were many new parts still in the box. Worried, he called the factory at Cheshunt and they explained that there were always a few ‘spares thrown in’, so no worries.

He made his next steps with a 1965 Lotus 15 Buick, a Brabham BT8 and a Broadspeed Mini, before he changed to much bigger machinery. Quite in contrast to the Mini, the Lola T70 Mk3B followed …

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by Andrew Cotton and Robert Weber

Photographs: Jonny Lau/Machina Studios, Barrie Smith Archives