Piquet had a brief career in tennis before losing interest in the sport and subsequently took up karting and hid his identity to prevent his father discovering his hobby.

Piquet was born 17 August 1952, in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, the son of Estácio Gonçalves Souto Maior (1913–1974), a Brazilian physician.

[5] Upon returning to Brazil, Piquet and three friends bought a 20 hp cart and participated in Brazilian go-karting (1971 and 1972 national champion) and in the local Formula Super Vee 1976 championship, in which he easily won that season.

Two weeks after the Italian round, Lauda abruptly quit driving before the start of the Canadian Grand Prix, leaving Piquet as the number one driver for Brabham, and leaving him and new recruit Ricardo Zunino to debut the new BT49, which had a Ford-Cosworth DFV engine; Brabham ditched the Alfa Romeo V12's in protest to Alfa Romeo entering as a full works team.

The superiority of the car was such that Piquet easily swept to victory and even his less experienced Mexican teammate Héctor Rebaque, who could usually be found well down the order, managed to retain second place until he was forced to retire.

In the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, after an initial start which was aborted due to an accident involving Siegfried Stohr, his teammate Riccardo Patrese and mechanic Dave Luckett who inexplicably remained on the track at the start to restart Patrese's stalled car, Piquet went off again in the lead only to have Jones make contact on lap 10 forcing him to retire,[18] with the race being won by Reutemann.

After crashing in Monaco and Spain, Piquet was able to recover at the French Grand Prix at Dijon where he dominated until lap 58, when a sudden storm led to a red flag and the organizers decided to wait until the rain stopped to continue the race.

[19] In the next race, the British Grand Prix, Reutemann finished second to open up a seventeen-point lead in the standings while Piquet suffered tyre failure and crashed on the straight between Stowe and Club corners.

At the season-ending South African Grand Prix, Prost retired on lap 35 and Piquet cruised to a third-place finish, winning his second world title.

With the new rule that limited the capacity of the tanks of the cars to 220 liters and forbade race refueling, Piquet started as the title favorite[27] because it was thought that the 4-cylinder BMW would suffer less from the new fuel economy requirement than the 6-cylinder competition.

The only good thing that came from the tests was the creation of special qualifying engines, which produced more than 900 hp and allowed Piquet to match what was then the record for pole positions in a year: nine, already held by Lauda and Ronnie Peterson.

Prior to the 1985 season, Piquet and Brabham conducted their winter testing at the Kyalami circuit in South Africa, along with the team's new tyre supplier Pirelli.

This, and the Brabham BT54's weight distribution towards the back of the car saw the Pirelli tyres (especially the fronts) largely ineffective and left Piquet often fast, but ultimately uncompetitive.

In 1985, Piquet won a single race, the French Grand Prix at the Paul Ricard Circuit with summer conditions similar to those experienced in testing suiting the tyres, and the powerful BMW turbo engine propelling the Brabham BT54 (of teammate Marc Surer) to the then F1 speed record of 338 km/h (210 mph) on the 1.8 km (1.1 mi) long Mistral Straight during qualifying.

However, shortly before the beginning of the season, Frank Williams suffered a serious car accident that kept him away from the team for a long time and caused a permanent physical disability.

[35] Though the two drove what were clearly the best cars on the grid, their rivalry caused each to deprive the other of points, allowing Alain Prost to win one of the closest and most fiercely disputed championships ever in Formula One.

Piquet (and reportedly Honda) left Adelaide following the Australian Grand Prix, fuming that Williams had not honoured their contract and had allowed Mansell to win races instead of ordering him to let the Brazilian by.

He was ordered by FISA's medical chief, Sid Watkins, not to race due to the concussion he suffered when his Williams hit the wall at high speed at the Tamburello curve.

On what was his last attempt to qualify at Spa, Piquet lost his chance when he was slowed by rookie Frenchman Olivier Grouillard, who had gained a reputation throughout the season as a blocker.

The late season announcement by Lotus meant that there were almost no seats left with one of the top teams (McLaren, Ferrari and Williams), leaving Piquet with the unenviable possibility of not having a drive for 1990.

After two lacklustre seasons at Lotus, Piquet was forced to sign an incentive based payment-by-results deal with Benetton, who had acquired the services of John Barnard for their 1990 car, the B190 and had exclusive use of the factory Ford-Cosworth HB4 V8 engine.

Despite a handful of lacklustre performances and sometimes being outperformed by fast Italian teammate Alessandro Nannini who was forced into retirement before the Spanish Grand Prix (after his right forearm had to be surgically re-attached following a helicopter crash) Piquet scored two wins in the last two races of the season.

The second was just two weeks later at the last race of the season in Australia when after a great drive, Piquet survived a spirited, but fair, challenge from the V12 Ferrari of Mansell to win what was the 500th World Championship Formula One Grand Prix.

This was followed by the final win of his F1 career at Montreal in 1991 – again at the expense of longtime rival Mansell, whose Williams-Renault stalled past the old pits on the last lap while leading.

[42] In 1996, Piquet competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours driving a McLaren F1 GTR alongside Johnny Cecotto and Danny Sullivan, finishing eighth overall.

Since 2000, he has supported the career of his son, Nelson Piquet Jr., who drove in the F1-feeder category GP2 for 2 seasons, achieving a best championship result of second with four race wins, and was a test driver for Renault F1 in 2007.

During the Crashgate scandal, Piquet pledged to use his wealth to find out why his son had been ordered by the Renault team to crash deliberately during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

The crash caused him to lose some 80% of his depth perception and saw him secretly visit a hospital in Milan every two weeks through the season fearing that if he told his team they would not let him drive.

[54] Mansell was in particular incensed about the personal attacks on his family which he described as "out of order",[55] while Senna countered the accusations against his sexuality in a 1990 interview with the Brazilian edition of Playboy where he revealed that he lost his virginity to a prostitute when he was 13 years old.

[68][69][non-primary source needed] The British Racing Drivers' Club also suspended Piquet’s membership, and were expected to terminate his status as an honorary member, following a 7 day notice period.