Inside Nelson Piquet’s Furious 1982 Hockenheim Clash with Eliseo Salazar
There’s more to the Piquet/Salazar fight of ’82 than meets the eye…
As driver punch-ups go, few are as notorious as the incident at Hockenheim in 1982, when Nelson Piquet set about Eliseo Salazar.
Piquet’s fury was understandable. Brabham’s development of the turbo BMW engine had been badly delayed and the team needed a good finish at the car company’s home race. With a narrow lead over Tambay’s Ferrari and half the race still to go, Piquet was taken off by Salazar, whose ATS was a lap behind. Once out of his car, Nelson laid into the Chilean with fists and feet, under the gaze of a TV camera (right).
The incident added nothing to the Piquet image. But an interesting justification for the outburst is offered by Gregg Siddle, former F3 team owner and a close friend of Piquet.