Nelson Piquet Jr., who became the source of a recent scandal known as ‘crash-gate’, will be testing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with an eye towards a future in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series with in two years. Piquet Jr., will get behind the wheel of a Toyota Tundra for Red Horse Racing on October 12th [at Rockingham, NC]. He is expected in the team’s Mooresville, NC shop Monday for a seat fitting. The Renault F1 team fired the 23-year-old Brazilian earlier this season for underperformance. Shortly after details emerged that Piquet had been ordered to cause a crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix that allowed his teammate Fernando Alonso to win. After an investigation and hearing, Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, held a hearing and banned Renault F1’s team boss Flavio Briatore for life and the team’s technical engineer Pat Symonds for five years. They also placed the team on a ‘suspended ban’ for two years. Piquet Jr., was given immunity from sanctions in exchange for his testimony and many in Formula One now consider the son of two time Formula One world champion Nelson Piquet to be ‘damaged goods’.(SPEEDtv)(10-4-2009)
UPDATE: Brazilian natives, Nelson Piquet, Jr. and Vitor Meira will test a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Toyota Tundra at Little Rock for Red Horse Racing. The one day test scheduled for Monday, October 12th, will be the first time behind the wheel of a stock car for Formula 1 driver, Nelson Piquet, and IndyCar Series driver, Vitor Meira. Red Horse Racing will field two Toyota Tundras (both displaying #1) for Piquet and Meira to test on the short track at Rockingham Speedway. Red Horse Drivers Timothy Peters and TJ Bell will also be on hand to help the open wheel drivers acclimate to their first stock car test. Both Piquet and Meira plan to use this test with Red Horse Racing to evaluate a future career among the NASCAR ranks. Both extremely successful in their respective series, Piquet and Meira look forward to a new challenge. Pacific Mobile will be a sponsor of the test as they are also evaluating NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Racing. We look forward to helping Vitor Meira and Nelson Piquet make the transition into NASCAR, said Red Horse Racing Owner, Tom DeLoach. Its not an easy thing to do to go from an open wheel background to racing stock cars but they are both immensely talented and have the ability to be successful in any series they chose to race in.(Red Horse Racing)(10-5-2009)
