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ROBERTO MORENO, TRIBUTE
Roberto Moreno at F Cart
Roberto Moreno is proof that motorsport, especially F1, is not a fair sport, that's why I had to make a page in honor of this driver, a very hard-working driver who was admired by several people and several teams.
Moreno wasn't a genius, but he was a very good driver, good at preparation work and setting up the car, who worked miracles in small teams with no structure and some of them didn't even have a chance of classifying their car for the starting grid.
Moreno started as an apprentice mechanic at Alex Dias Ribeiro and Nelson Piquet's Camber Workshop in Brasília. And the curiosity is that the three became professional drivers and reached F1. Moreno was also the Brasilia kart champion in 1974, then he was the Brazilian kart champion in 1976.
In 1980 he became champion of the English F Ford 1600 and runner-up in the European F Ford 1600.
In 1981 with standard F Pacific cars in the 1981 Australian GP, racing against Nelson Piquet, Alan Jones and other drivers, Moreno took pole, VMR and won the race.
In 1982 he was the winner of the Tasmanian Cup and the Macau GP of the F Atlantic, being the first Brazilian to win this GP.
Moreno got a chance in F1 when Nigel Mansell fractured his wrist in the 1982 Canadian GP and was asked to replace him in the following race, at the 1982 Dutch GP. But in those days the cars were very difficult to drive, there was no telemetry to help the driver. improve his driving, the steering wheel was extremely heavy as there was no power steering and he simply couldn't classify the car, due to the difficulty of getting around the car in the curves.
In 1987 Moreno had a good debut season and came 3rd in F3000 with 1 victory and 5 podiums.
Still in 1987, he raced two races in F1 for the AGS team, and the AGS car was derived from the 1984/85 Renault RE50. Moreno suggested changing the car's shock absorbers, stops and springs, and this made the performance improve a lot. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGSUkmLJUYk - CANAL ENERTO)
He managed to qualify in Japan and Australia, and surprisingly came 6th in Australia 87, marking the only point in AGS history. This feat was considered extraordinary, taking into account that the AGS car was very out of date compared to the other cars.
Source: https://ge.globo.com/motor/formula-1/blogs/f1-memoria/post/2019/02/11/os-60-anos-de-roberto-pupo-moreno-relembre-momentos- marcos-do-piloto-brasileiro.ghtml
In 1988, in F3000, he had little money, but he bought a car with the promise to pay at the end of the year with Nelson Piquet as guarantor and later he borrowed an engine. With the prizes he obtained in one race, he was able to run in the next, with this scheme he was the F 3000 champion, managing to obtain the record of 4 victories in the category, a record that was only equaled in 1999 by Nick Heidfeld. Moreno's willpower and ability to be champion in his debut year are incredible.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMeE3Iq93E8 (CANAL ENERTO)
That same year, Roberto Moreno was invited to be a test driver for Ferrari, being the driver who developed the semi-automatic transmission, widely used in the following decades of F1. In other words, he was probably the first driver to use this type of equipment in F1.
In 1988 Moreno developed Ferrari's semi-automatic transmission. (Source: Enio Russo photo collection)
In 1989, racing for Coloni, he managed to qualify for the starting grid 4 times, a commendable feat considering Coloni's outdated and heavy car.
In 1990, in the USA GP he managed to qualify and start from Eurobrum in front of Nigel Mansell from Ferrari, the Brazilian did 1m31s247 while Mansell did 1m31s363, this was amazing at the time. The EuroBrum team is considered one of the worst teams in the history of F1, according to the Brazilian, the team did not want to classify the car from pre-qualifying training to main training, as they did not have money to buy tires and new engines.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRkYhd_Om8k (Canal Enerto)
That same year, Alessandro Nannini suffered a serious accident and lost his arm, Moreno was called to replace him at Benetton, achieving an excellent 2nd place in the Japan GP, making the last Brazilian one-two finish in F1 until the publication of this text (2024).
In 1991, Moreno achieved good results, starting ahead of Nelson Piquet on 3 occasions, but after the Belgian GP, he was replaced by Michael Schumacher. Ironically, in what was Moreno's last GP for Benetton, he simply set the best lap of the race on this track considered one of the most selective in F1. Everyone remembers that, in the 1991 Spa Qualifying, Schumacher was 0.7s faster than Andrea De Cesaris in Jordan, but no one remembers that Moreno went to Jordan in the next race and was 0.8s faster than Andrea De Cesaris in Monza.
In 1992, Roberto raced for the weak Andrea Moda, who came from the Coloni estate, but he still achieved an amazing feat by qualifying for the Monaco GP. Moreno clocked 1m24s945 and left future F1 champion Damon Hill in Brabham off the grid with 1m25s394. Andrea Moda de Moreno was 5 seconds slower than the pole position, taking into account that Monaco was a very short track, it is clear that his car was very bad.
In 1995, Moreno raced for Forti Corse with Pedro Paulo Diniz as a teammate. His car was quite outdated, still with a manual transmission, while all the other cars already had a semi-automatic transmission on the steering wheel, it was the worst car on the grid. Moreno became a "coach" for the young Brazilian, who was a pay driver and brought money to the team. Diniz learned a lot from his tutor Moreno.
The paradox of this situation is that Moreno was the driver who developed the semi-automatic transmission in F1, but his last car in the category had a manual transmission.
In 1996, Moreno transferred to F Cart/Indy and achieved an excellent 3rd place in the Michigan 500 with the very weak Payton Coyne team, a team considered to be a backyard team. He started at the back of the grid and reached the podium.
In 2000, he finished 3rd in the championship for the Patrick team, competing for the title until the last race of the season and winning his first race in Cleveland, a feat that demonstrates how Moreno was a well-regarded driver, who could even be a champion if he had a car tip in hand.
In 2001, still with Patrick, he won his second race in the category in Vancouver, doing another Brazilian one-two, with Gil de Ferran in second.
In 2003, in his last full season in F Cart/Indy, racing for a merely average team, the Mexican Herdez, he obtained second place and repeated the feat achieved in F1: in his last race of the season, in Surfers Paradise, he did it again the best lap of the race, only this time at 44 years of age.
Téo José, narrator of the F Cart and Indy races, called Moreno “Operário da Velocidade”, a nickname that Moreno didn't like very much, but the important fact is that he was always remembered and respected by all the F Cart/Indy teams.
CONCLUSION
There is no known driver in recent history who has done so much with cars that are so uncompetitive in various categories of motorsport. Moreno didn't win any races in F1, but technically he was at a level very close to several GOOD DRIVERS who won races such as Barrichello, Massa, Hill, Villeneuve, Coulthard, Alboreto, Patrese, Boutsen and Ralf Schumacher. Moreno deserves a better chance in his career to showcase his talent.
Due to the fact that he raced in several small teams, Brazilians mistakenly see him as a limited driver, without carrying out a careful analysis as experts do abroad, where he enjoys an excellent reputation. He has always been a fast driver, as evidenced by his excellent seasons in the F Ford in 1980, F 3000 in 1987 and 1988, and his best laps in his last race for Benetton in F1 in 1991 and in his last race for Herdez in F Cart in 2003 .
Another interesting fact about him is that he tested or trained or raced in cars from all the big F1 teams of the 80s and 90s: Lotus (82), Williams (87), Ferrari (88), Benetton (90/91) and McLaren (91), and in F Cart he also tested for Penske and raced replacing Christian Fittipaldi 12 times for Newman-Haas.
Everyone knows that the CAR is the most important part of MOTORSPORT, so Roberto Moreno's achievements with non-competitive cars should be remembered forever, and that's why he deserves a page in his honor.
THANKS TO KART DRIVER ENIO RUSSO, FORMER INDY HEAD OF TIMING IN BRAZIL, CO-FOUNDER AND CURRENT VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BV IN-DOOR KART CHAMPIONSHIP, FOR PROVIDING INFORMATION ABOUT ROBERTO MORENO.