Profile of Roberto Moreno on Famous Like Me

Roberto Moreno (born 11 January 1959 in Rio de Janeiro)was a Formula One driver from Brazil. He participated in 75 grands prix, achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 15 championship points. He raced in IndyCars and was Formula 3000 champion (in 1988) before joining Formula 1 full-time in 1989.

He had previously stood in for Lotus at the 1982 Dutch Grand Prix, but, underprepared, had failed to qualify. It took his reputation a while to recover from this poor showing, but in 1987 he was called up to stand in for AGS at the Japanese Grand Prix. In the following Australian Grand Prix, he took 6th place for his, and the team's, first ever point.

Following his Formula 3000 Championship in 1988, 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 an arm in a helicopter crash. Moreno finished an excellent 2nd on his Benetton debut in the Japanese Grand Prix, behind childhood friend and team-mate Nelson Piquet.

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 San Marino Grand Prix and the Belgian Grand Prix. 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 purposefully driving within himself for the whole season in order to not show Piquet up. As it was, Moreno was offered a couple of one-off drives for Jordan, and another for Minardi, 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. He would only qualify the under-tested, under-funded car once, for the Monaco Grand Prix, before the team collapsed following the Belgian Grand Prix.

He spent the next two years racing Italian and French Touring Cars, also competing in the 1994 Indy 500.

1995 saw a return to Formula One, with the ambitious Forti team. 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.

1996 would see the real start of his IndyCar career, as he raced a Payton-Coyne Lola-Ford, finishing 3rd at Michigan. For 1997 he drove for three teams, earning the epiphet "Supersub", with his best result of 5th at Detroit in a Newman-Hass Swift-Ford. 1998 was more barren, with just three drives, though he came 6th at Motegi in the Project Indy Reynard-Mercedes. The following season again saw him take three different cars, with two 4th places his best. 2000 finally saw him land a full-time drive in the Patrick Racing Reynard-Ford, and he led the series for much of the distance, winning at Cleveland, and eventually ranking 3rd overall. He won again for Patrick at Vancouver the following year, but was less consistent and dropped to 13th in the standings.

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

Trivia

• The character of Memo Moreno (played by Cristian de la Fuente) in the 2001 film Driven was based on Roberto Moreno, with his Patrick Racing car used to provide racing footage for the film.

Complete Formula One results

(Note: grands prix in bold denote points scoring races.)

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