Roberto Moreno: Australian Grand Prix Triple Winner and Formula One Stand-In

Roberto Moreno is a Brazilian former racing driver whose career ran from a stand-in drive at Lotus in 1982 to a final Formula One outing with Forti in 1995. He is best remembered for three Australian Grand Prix wins and a long North American career in Champ Car and IndyCar that continued into the 2000s.

Who is Roberto Moreno?

Roberto Pupo Moreno was born on 11 February 1959 in Brazil. He took part in 75 Formula One Grands Prix, scoring fifteen championship points and one podium, before a long career in American open-wheel racing followed.

Late in his career he earned the nickname Super Sub, because teams called him in to replace injured drivers several times. These days he coaches drivers and advises teams, and he still appears in historic events, although he has not formally retired.

A triple Australian Grand Prix winner who moved from a Lotus stand-in to a long and varied career in American open-wheel racing.

How did Moreno rise through the junior ranks?

Moreno won the 1976 Brazilian 125cc karting championship and reached England in 1979 to race in Formula Ford. In 1980 he won the British Formula Ford title as a works Van Diemen driver, and that success brought him to the attention of Colin Chapman at Lotus.

Early in 1979 he shared a transporter with Marc Smith's Royale team, acting as both driver and mechanic for his own car. Ron Tauranac, the Ralt owner and designer, lent him an old shed to use as a base, and a couple of good results convinced Ralph Firman Sr to sign him for 1980.

That season Moreno won eight races on the way to the British title, added three more victories in Europe and finished second in the Euroseries. He closed the year by winning the Formula Ford Festival, and he returned to race at the Festival's 50th anniversary in 2021.

Chapman's interest brought him a Formula One testing contract, which gave him the money to keep racing. In 1981 he ran Formula Three with Barron Racing and won two races, and in 1982 he found more success in North America in the CASC Formula Atlantic series.

In a support race at Long Beach in 1982 he beat Al Unser Jr, and later that year he won the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres. He also ran half a British Formula 3 season with Ivens Lumar Racing and won three races in it.

Why did Moreno win the Australian Grand Prix three times?

Moreno's three wins came in 1981, 1983 and 1984, when the race was a Formula Mondial event held at Melbourne's Calder Park Raceway. Those he beat included Piquet, Jones, Lauda and Rosberg, all of them world champions at some point.

Calder Park was a 1.6 km (1.0 mi) circuit, and his cars in those years were Formula Pacific or Formula Mondial Ralt RT4s with a 1.6 litre Ford four-cylinder engine. He also beat Jacques Laffite and Andrea de Cesaris in the same events.

His one Australian Grand Prix in the period without a win came in 1982, when he finished third behind Alain Prost and Laffite. Throughout those years he was managed by Greg Siddle, who also looked after his friend Nelson Piquet.

What went wrong in Moreno's Lotus stand-in?

Colin Chapman called Moreno up as Nigel Mansell's replacement for the 1982 Dutch Grand Prix, following a wrist injury Mansell suffered in Canada. The Lotus 91 proved hard to handle, and Moreno failed to qualify. Lotus released him from his test duties at the end of the year.

Theodore Racing's Jan Lammers had broken a thumb at Detroit, and team owner Teddy Yip wanted Moreno for that seat. Chapman refused to release him, which is how the Lotus opportunity came about.

Moreno had barely driven the Lotus 91, because the regular drivers did most of the testing. He was restricted to earlier Lotus cars, the 87B and 88, and his best qualifying lap was more than two seconds short of making the grid.

The episode damaged his reputation for a time, and it also held back his next Formula One chance for several years.

How did a seventh place in Adelaide earn AGS a point?

Moreno finished seventh at the 1987 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, and a later disqualification moved him up to sixth. That result gave AGS, and Moreno, the team's first-ever Formula One point.

He had been called up to replace Pascal Fabre at AGS for the Japanese Grand Prix. He was the slowest driver in practice and did not qualify, a fresh setback five years after the Lotus stand-in.

His debut came through a chain of withdrawals. In Adelaide he threaded the awkward JH22 between the walls of the street circuit, and while other drivers hit the walls and broke their cars, he came home seventh.

Post-race scrutineering then disqualified Ayrton Senna's Lotus-Honda from second place for oversized brake ducts. That promotion put Moreno in sixth.

What did the 1988 Formula 3000 title achieve?

Moreno won the 1988 International Formula 3000 Championship with Bromley Motorsport, driving a sponsorless Reynard-Cosworth 88D. The title was a form of revenge for the earlier setbacks, and it was won without a sponsor.

Before that he had returned to North American racing alongside Siddle. A backer had agreed to fund a full Formula Atlantic season, but when the Long Beach support race switched to Super Vee the deal collapsed. Teddy Yip's team helped finance a move, and he won four races, but each time Moreno won, Michael Andretti finished second.

He returned to Europe in 1984 and was runner-up to Mike Thackwell in the final European Formula Two Championship, winning at Hockenheim and Donington Park. Ralt's Ron Tauranac then wanted him for the inaugural International Formula 3000 season, but he moved on to Indycar instead.

Moreno had also tested the Toleman with Senna's car at the end of 1984, and a drive looked likely until the team admitted it had no tyres. The Indycar years with Rick Galles' team brought no good results, so in 1986 he moved back to F3000 with Ralt, won the Gran Premio del Mediterraneo and finished third overall.

In 1984 he had also almost joined Brabham as Piquet's team-mate. Parmalat, the Italian sponsor, insisted on an Italian driver, so Bernie Ecclestone signed the Fabi brothers instead.

In 1988 Bromley Motorsport, owned by Ron Salt, began the season with almost no money. With help from Reynard, Moreno took three straight early-season wins at Pau, Silverstone and Monza, then a fourth at the Birmingham Superprix.

What were the Coloni and Benetton years like?

Despite the F3000 title, no big team rushed to sign Moreno. He signed a testing deal with Ferrari, which helped him land a drive with Coloni in 1989. The car was never competitive, and he made the grid only four times from 16 attempts.

In 1990 he began with EuroBrun, which had him qualify for just two of the first fourteen races. When that team pulled out of the last two rounds, Benetton called him in after Alessandro Nannini nearly lost a hand in a helicopter crash.

At Suzuka in the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix he qualified eighth and shadowed Piquet to second place on his Benetton debut. Prost and Senna collided at the first corner, which helped him. He followed with eighth on the grid and seventh in Adelaide, then earned a full Benetton contract for 1991.

The 1991 Benetton B191 was less competitive than the team had hoped. Moreno's best results were fourth at Monaco and fourth at Belgium, where he also set the fastest lap, although that drive was overshadowed by Michael Schumacher's debut for Jordan.

Benetton's bosses, Tom Walkinshaw and Flavio Briatore, wanted a driver to rebuild the team around. Moreno was paid off, and Schumacher was signed from Jordan. Rumours persist that Moreno drove within himself to avoid outpacing Piquet, but that claim has never been confirmed.

He then joined Jordan for the 1991 Italian Grand Prix, qualified ninth ahead of Andrea de Cesaris, and spun on the second lap. He then raced in Portugal and replaced Gianni Morbidelli at Minardi for the season finale in Adelaide.

How did the final Formula One seasons play out?

For 1992 Moreno joined Andrea Moda, alongside Perry McCarthy, who later became the original Stig on Top Gear. The team had already failed to start two races with other drivers, and the new line-up struggled to reach the grid.

Moreno qualified the car only once, for Monaco, before the team collapsed after owner Andrea Sassetti was arrested at the Belgian Grand Prix. He then spent two seasons in Italian and French touring cars and tried to qualify for the 1994 Indianapolis 500.

In 1995 he returned to Formula One with Forti, where his Brazilian heritage helped him land the drive. The car was comparatively slow, and his best result was fourteenth at the Belgian Grand Prix.

He finished eleventh on the road in Argentina but was nine laps down and not classified. His Formula One career ended with a crash into the pit wall at that season's Australian Grand Prix.

How did the Champ Car and IndyCar years go?

Moreno resumed his Champ Car career in 1996 with Payton-Coyne Racing, finishing third at Michigan in a Lola-Ford. He left the team at the start of 1997 for its lack of commitment, and that year he drove for three teams and earned the nickname Supersub.

His best 1997 finish was fifth at Detroit, driving a Swift-Ford for Newman-Haas after replacing the injured Christian Fittipaldi. He beat team leader Michael Andretti in qualifying several times, though he could not secure a competitive seat for 1998 and took a testing role with Penske.

In 1999 he contested his first Indy Racing League race, at Phoenix, and came sixth. He also went back to the Indianapolis 500 after thirteen years away, finishing 20th. In 2000 he was given a full-time seat with Patrick Racing and led the series for much of the season before losing ground to Gil de Ferran, ending third overall.

During 2000 Cleveland gave him his first Champ Car win, and he wept openly in a scene rarely seen in motor racing. It was his first race win since his Formula 3000 title twelve years earlier. He won again at Vancouver in 2001, though he was less consistent and slipped to 13th in the standings.

In 2003 he drove for Herdez Competition and took second at Miami, and he announced his retirement at the end of that year. He returned in 2006 for a substitute role at Vision Racing in St. Petersburg, and in 2007 he raced the new Panoz-built Champ Car at Houston after extensive testing.

What were the key milestones of Moreno's career?