Roberto Moreno
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Roberto Pupo Moreno (born February 11, 1959 in Rio de Janeiro[1]), usualy 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. He currently drives 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.
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[edit] Career
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
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.
[edit] An assortment of drives
.jpg/180px-Roberto_Moreno_Forti_1995_Britain_(crop).jpg)
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.
[edit] 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."[2]
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.[3]
[edit] IndyCar Series
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 Stephan Gregoire at the 2007 Indianapolis 500 for Chastain Motorsports. He crashed the car early in the race and finished in last place.
[edit] Trivia
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- Moreno's debut in North America was at The Long Beach Grand Prix driving in the Formula Atlantic support race for the well known West Coast Racing Team "Ocean Motors BMW" - who also sponsored Roberto at Indy when he drove for Galles Racing.
[edit] Race results
[edit] Complete Formula One results
(key) (races in italics indicate fastest lap)
[edit] Indy 500 results
| Year | Chassis | Engine | Start | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Lola | Cosworth | 32nd | 19th |
| 1994 | Lola | Ford-Cosworth | Failed to Qualify | |
| 1999 | G-Force | Oldsmobile | 23rd | 20th |
| 2007 | Panoz | Honda | 31st | 33rd |
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Don Macleod |
Formula Ford Festival Winner 1980 |
Succeeded by Tommy Byrne |
| Preceded by Bob Earl |
Macau GP winner 1982 |
Succeeded by Ayrton Senna |
| Preceded by Stefano Modena |
International Formula 3000 Champion 1988 |
Succeeded by Jean Alesi |
[edit] References
- ^ Jenkins, Richard. The World Championship drivers - Where are they now?. OldRacingCars.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
- ^ Kirby, Gordon, Gordon Kirby's Inside Track, ChampCarWorldSeries.com, August 1, 2006
- ^ Moreno to Replace Figge in Houston, SpeedTV.com, April 21, 2007
[edit] External links
