Helmut Marko questioned the "timing" of Nelson Piquet's recent scandal.
Helmut Marko questioned the "timing" of Nelson Piquet's recent scandal.
Shortly before the British GP at Silverstone, a video emerged of the three-time world champion using a racist term when referring to Lewis Hamilton.
This sparked a huge controversy, including calls for a lifetime ban from Formula One and even criminal prosecution, which was highly convenient for the seven-time world champion and his team, according to Marko.
"I don't want to defend Piquet, but if you translate the Portuguese correctly, what he said is not so rude," he told the newspaper .
"But we know Piquet. Even when he was active, he always made reckless statements. The only strange thing is that this interview from November last year appeared a few days before the British GP.
Marko suspects that Hamilton's advisors wanted to divert attention from the Briton's controversial crash with Max Verstappen - who is dating Piquet's daughter Kelly - at Silverstone last year.
"Apparently, they didn't want last year's accident to boil over again," the Austrian accused. "That moment was no coincidence."