Despite being one of the fastest drivers in the world, Nelson Piquet has a small confession to make: he isn’t very enthusiastic about performance cars.

‘To be honest I’m not a fan of big sports cars on the streets like Ferraris or Lamborghinis - I’m not into it,’ he says in his usual calm demeanour as he sits in the terrace of The Address hotel in Downtown Burj Dubai. It may be a little surprising coming from someone who’s life is based on going quickly, but driving a car made by the same company as your track rival (Ferrari) is obviously a big ‘no no’.

Still, his French team does have Renaultsport as a sporting division for its road cars. ‘I drive a Laguna GT.’ Oh. ‘I like big cars, 4x4s. Large cars that I can put everyone inside when I’m at home,’ he says.

Piquet, 23, came to Dubai as part of the Renault Roadshow when evo-me caught up with him, and despite it being only his second visit to the city, he says ‘it’s a nice place - I quite like being here’.

The Roadshow got off to an auspicious start, when during the media day, Mohamed Bin Sulayem crashed the Renault F1 team’s car as he tried to drag-race it against a Ford GT at the Dubai Autodrome. Still, the show went on. Renault’s new 306bhp Megane Trophy cars, piloted by the F1 team’s test drivers were out on show performing some tyre-burning action on the specially-built platform, along with a second Formula 1 car.

Piquet’s mind seems to be somewhere else. This season’s results - Ret., 13th, 16th, 10th - are probably more of a thorny issue than the Roadshow.

‘Obviously I’m not on my best - I want to improve more. I have a very tough team mate next to me, who’s doing very well. I’m giving myself a hard time because I want to do as well as he’s doing. I want to at least beat him.’

That’s not the only thing he wants to do. If sports cars weren’t appealing to him on the road, at least they seem to be more so when prepared for the track. ‘I still want to race in Le Mans and Sebring. I still want to do all kinds of races,’ he concludes in his final sentence.

The 2009 season hasn’t been kind to Piquet; but could he already be thinking of leaving F1?