Roberto Moreno

Roberto Moreno Formula One World Championship career Nationality Brazilian Active years 1982, 1987, 1989–1992, 1995 Teams Lotus, AGS, Coloni, EuroBrun, Benetton, Jordan, Minardi, Andrea Moda and Forti Entries 77 (42 starts) Championships 0 Wins 0 Podiums 1 Career points 15 Pole positions 0 Fastest laps 1 First entry 1982 Dutch Grand Prix Last entry 1995 Australian Grand Prix Roberto Moreno CART & Champ Car World Series Years active 1985–1986, 1996–2001, 2003, 2007 Teams Galles Racing Payton/Coyne Racing Bettenhausen Motorsports Newman/Haas Racing Project Indy PacWest Racing Patrick Racing Herdez Competition Pacific Coast Motorsports Starts 120 Wins 2 Poles 2 Best finish 3rd in 2000 Previous series 1980 1981–1982 1983 1984 1984–1985 1985–1988 1992 1993 1999, 2006–2007 2005, 2007 British Formula Ford 1600 British Formula Three North American Formula Mundial Formula Two Japanese Formula Two Formula 3000 Italian Superturismo Championship French Touring Car IRL IndyCar Series Rolex Sports Car Series Championship titles 1980 1980 1982 1988 British Formula Ford 1600 champion Formula Ford Festival winner Macau Grand Prix winner International Formula 3000 champion

Roberto Pupo Moreno (born February 11, 1959 in Rio de Janeiro), usually known as Roberto Moreno and also as Pupo Moreno, is a racing driver from Brazil. He participated in 75 Formula One Grands Prix, achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 15 championship points. He raced in CART in 1986, and was Formula 3000 champion (in 1988) before joining Formula One full-time in 1989. He returned to CART in 1996 and raced full-time until 2003. Recently he has driven as a temporary substitute and test driver in both Champ Car and IndyCar.

Moreno was known as the "Super Sub" late in his career as he was used to replace injured drivers several times.

The Brazilian driver is also the sport godfather of young gun Julien Gerbi, recently seen in Formula Two and Formula 3000. Gerbi actually tested for the F3000 team Coloni Motorsport exactly twenty years after Moreno had been its official driver in Formula One.

Career

Substitute

Moreno stood in for Nigel Mansell at Lotus at the 1982 Dutch Grand Prix after Mansell broke his wrist in the previous Grand Prix at Canada. Underprepared, Moreno failed to qualify. It took his reputation a while to recover from this poor showing, but in 1987 he was called up to replace Pascal Fabre for the AGS team at the 1987 Japanese Grand Prix. In the following Australian Grand Prix, he took 6th place for his, and the team's, first ever point.

In this period, Moreno won the Australian Grand Prix three times (1981, 1983 and 1984) before it became a Formula One World Championship race.

Full-time Formula One

Following his Formula 3000 Championship in 1988 (in which he drove a Reynard to the championship in the marque's first season in the formula), he signed a testing contract with Ferrari, who helped him land a racing drive with Coloni. The car was never competitive, however, and Moreno only made the grid four times.

Initially, 1990 seemed to be even less promising, with Moreno signing for the nosediving EuroBrun outfit, qualifying for just 2 out of 14 races. However, shortly after being informed the team would not be competing in the last two rounds of the season, he was contacted by Benetton to drive their second car, with Alessandro Nannini having lost a hand in a helicopter crash. Moreno finished an excellent 2nd on his Benetton debut in the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix, behind childhood friend and team-mate Nelson Piquet, although this result was helped by most other top cars dropping out, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna famously colliding at the first corner.

Moreno driving for Benetton at the 1991 United States Grand Prix.

For 1991, Benetton signed Moreno full-time. However, the Benetton B191, on Pirelli tyres, was not as competitive as anticipated, and Moreno's best results were 4th place at the Monaco Grand Prix and the Belgian Grand Prix (a race in which he set the fastest lap). The latter would be his last race for the team before he was controversially paid off and dropped in favour of Michael Schumacher. There are rumours to this day that Moreno was purposely driving within himself for the whole season in order to not show Piquet up. As it was, Moreno was offered the vacant Jordan drive for the 1991 Italian Grand Prix and the following race in Portugal, and raced for Minardi in the final race of the season, but Formula One seemed to have passed him by.

For the 1992 season, he found himself back with the minnows, signing for Andrea Moda. The outfit had risen from the ashes of Coloni, and after two non-starting races with Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia, decided to start over with Moreno and Perry McCarthy. Moreno and McCarthy faced an uphill struggle, with the uncompetitive team scrambling to even get to most races. Moreno would only qualify the under-tested, under-funded car once, for the Monaco Grand Prix, before the team collapsed following team owner Andrea Sassetti's arrest at the Belgian Grand Prix.

An assortment of drives

Moreno spent his last season of Formula One with the Forti team.

He spent the next two years racing Italian and French Touring Cars, and also attempted to qualify for the 1994 Indianapolis 500. 1995 saw a return to Formula One, with the ambitious Forti team. Moreno's Brazilian heritage helped him land the drive. Sadly, their car was laughably slow, and Moreno's best result was 14th in the Belgian Grand Prix. He would exit Formula One crashing into the pitlane wall at the Australian Grand Prix.

Champ Cars

1996 would see Moreno resume his Champ Car career, as he raced a Payton-Coyne Lola-Ford, finishing 3rd at Michigan. For 1997 he drove for three teams, earning the epithet "Supersub", with his best result of 5th at Detroit in a Newman-Haas Swift-Ford. 1998 was more barren, with just three drives, though he came 6th at Twin Ring Motegi in the Project Indy Reynard Motorsport-Mercedes. The following season again saw him take two different cars (Newman/Haas and PacWest) , with two 4th places his best. In 1999 he also made his first Indy Racing League start at Phoenix International Raceway finishing 6th and returned to the Indianapolis 500 after a 13 year absence finishing 20th for Truscelli Team Racing. 2000 finally saw him land a full-time drive in the Patrick Racing Reynard Motorsport-Ford, and he led the series for much of the distance, eventually ranking 3rd overall.

Moreno won his first Champ Car race at Cleveland, and in a scene scarcely seen in motor racing, the emotional Moreno wept openly. It had been his first race victory since his Formula 3000 victory twelve years earlier. He won again for Patrick Racing at Vancouver the following year, but was less consistent and dropped to 13th in the standings.

In 2003 he drove for Herdez Competition, taking his Lola-Cosworth to 2nd at Miami, and announced his retirement from motorsport at the end of the year.

In August 2006, Moreno became the first driver to test the new Panoz-built Champ Car. According to former series champion Paul Tracy, "[Moreno's] a guy who's not going to go out there and make mistakes and go off the road. They need to put miles on the car and run it fairly quickly, and he's the perfect guy for the job."

After running thousands of miles of testing in the Panoz DP01, Moreno got a chance to race it at the 2007 Grand Prix of Houston, substituting for the injured Alex Figge at Pacific Coast Motorsports.

IndyCar Series

Practicing for the 2007 Indianapolis 500

In 2006, after contesting one Brazilian Stock Car race at Jacarepagua, he ran the IndyCar race at St. Petersburg, Florida, substituting for Ed Carpenter of Vision Racing.

Roberto drove as a replacement for an injured Stéphan Grégoire at the 2007 Indianapolis 500 for Chastain Motorsports. He crashed the car early in the race and finished in last place.

Race results

Complete Formula One results

(key) (races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1982	John Player Lotus	Lotus 91	Cosworth V8	RSA	BRA	USW	SMR	BEL	MON	DET	CAN	NED DNQ	GBR	FRA	GER	AUT	SUI	ITA	CPL		NC	0
1987	Team AGS	AGS JH22	Cosworth V8	BRA	SMR	BEL	MON	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	AUT	ITA	POR	ESP	MEX	JPN Ret	AUS 6		19th	1
1989	Coloni SpA	Coloni FC188B	Cosworth V8	BRA DNQ	SMR DNQ	MON Ret	MEX DNQ	USA DNQ													NC	0
		Coloni C3							CAN Ret	FRA DNQ	GBR Ret	GER DNPQ	HUN DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	ITA DNPQ	POR Ret	ESP DNPQ	JPN DNPQ	AUS DNPQ
1990	EuroBrun Racing	EuroBrun ER189	Judd V8	USA 13	BRA DNPQ	SMR Ret	MON DNQ	CAN DNQ													10th	6
		EuroBrun ER189B							MEX DNQ	FRA DNPQ	GBR DNPQ	GER DNPQ	HUN DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	ITA DNPQ	POR DNPQ	ESP DNPQ
	Benetton Formula	Benetton B190	Ford V8															JPN 2	AUS 7
1991	Camel Benetton Ford	Benetton B190B	Ford V8	USA Ret	BRA 7	SMR 13	MON 4	CAN Ret	MEX 5	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 8	HUN 8	BEL 4							10th	8
	Team 7UP Jordan	Jordan 191													ITA Ret	POR 10	ESP	JPN
	Minardi Team	Minardi M191	Ferrari V12																AUS 16
1992	Andrea Moda Formula	Moda S921	Judd V10	RSA	MEX	BRA DNPQ	ESP DNPQ	SMR DNPQ	MON Ret	CAN DNPQ	FRA DNA	GBR DNPQ	GER DNPQ	HUN DNQ	BEL DNQ	ITA DNP	POR	JPN	AUS		NC	0
1995	Parmalat Forti Ford	Forti FG01	Ford V8	BRA Ret	ARG NC	SMR NC	ESP Ret	MON Ret	CAN Ret	FRA 16	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL 14	ITA Ret	POR 17	EUR Ret	PAC 16	JPN Ret	AUS Ret	NC	0

American Open-Wheel

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest race lap)

CART/Champ Car results

Years 1985-1986, 1996-2001 to be completed

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
2003	Herdez	STP 5	MTY 6	LBH Ret	BRH 7	LAU 10	MIL Ret	LS 15	POR 9	CLE Ret	TOR 6	VAN Ret	ROA 7	MDO Ret	MTL 7	DEN Ret	MIA 2	MXC	SRF Ret	FON NH	13th	67
2007	Pacific Coast	LVG	LBH	HOU 12	POR	CLE	MTT	TOR	EDM	SJO	ROA	ZOL	ASN	SRF	MXC						22nd	9

Indy 500 results

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish	Team
1986	Lola	Cosworth	32nd	19th	Galles
1994	Lola	Ford-Cosworth	Failed to Qualify		Arizona
1999	G-Force	Oldsmobile	23rd	20th	Truscelli
2007	Panoz	Honda	31st	33rd	Chastain