Piquet interview: A second chance

Nelson Piquet has put the troubled beginning to his Formula 1 career behind him and tells Adam Cooper why he's expecting to have a much better second season in 2009

Nelson Piquet's rookie season was not an easy one. It was never going to be, bearing in mind he was up against a double world champion and in a car that was uncompetitive for much of the season.

A run of mistakes didn't make things any easier, but in the end he survived and retained his job. It was good to see a major team willing to acknowledge that, give or take the odd exceptional case such as Lewis Hamilton, these days an F1 driver needs at least a season to learn his craft. Kicking him out after underwriting a year of education makes no sense. There was no obvious candidate ready to step in and do a better job, so Flavio Briatore gave him a second chance.

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