Roberto
Moreno

Roberto Moreno was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1959. After winning the Brazilian karting championship in 1976, he moved to England in 1979 and raced in Formula Ford, taking the British title in 1980 as a works Van Diemen driver. Formula 3 and Formula Atlantic followed. In Australia he won the Grand Prix in 1981, 1983 and 1984, before it became part of the Formula One World Championship in 1985.

In 1982 he stood in for the injured Nigel Mansell at Lotus but failed to qualify for the Dutch Grand Prix. His first World Championship start came in 1987 in Japan with AGS, after Williams withdrew the entry of the injured Mansell. In the next race, in Adelaide, he was moved up to sixth when Ayrton Senna was disqualified, earning the first championship point for himself and the team. In 1988 he won the International Formula 3000 title in a Reynard.

In 1989 he drove for Coloni and qualified only four times in 16 attempts. He began 1990 with EuroBrun before Benetton called him up to replace Alessandro Nannini, who was out after an accident. On his Benetton debut in Japan he finished second, which remained his only podium in Formula One. He was a full-time Benetton driver in 1991 and took fourth place in both Monaco and Belgium; after the Belgian race the team replaced him with Michael Schumacher. He then drove for Jordan in Italy and for Minardi in the Australian finale. He finished tenth in the standings in both 1990 and 1991.

With Andrea Moda in 1992 he qualified just once, at Monaco, before the team collapsed. After touring car racing in Italy and France, he returned with Forti in 1995, his best result being 14th in Belgium. In total he made 42 starts from 75 entries, without a win.

From 1996 he raced again in CART and earned the nickname Supersub for often replacing injured drivers. In 2000 he had a full-time seat at Patrick Racing, finished third overall and took his first win in the series at Cleveland; he won again at Vancouver in 2001. In 2007 he stood in for an injured driver at the Indianapolis 500. He works as a driver coach and consultant.

Source: Wikipedia, “Roberto Moreno”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.