Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost crash handed him debut podium, then Michael Schumacher took his seat

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Liam Lawson became the latest Formula 1 driver to lose his seat mid-season this week. Lawson lasted just two races at Red Bull before a swap with Racing Bulls star Yuki Tsunoda.

While this was one of the shortest stints in F1 history, driver changes during the season are fairly common in the sport. Logan Sargeant and Daniel Ricciardo were victims last year, and Alpine’s Jack Doohan could be the next one replaced.

In fact, one of the greatest ever F1 drivers – Michael Schumacher – was the beneficiary of such a move at the beginning of his career. Schumacher replaced Roberto Moreno at Benetton 11 rounds into the 1991 season, and won the title three with the Enstone team three years later.

Moreno was ten years older than Schumacher but he’d only competed in a handful of races when he joined Benetton. He represented lesser-known teams like EuroBrun, Coloni SpA and AGS.

Roberto Moreno’s remarkable year at Bennetton before losing his seat to Michael Schumacher

Moreno’s Bennetton chance came about in upsetting circumstances after Alessandro Nannini, a race-winning driver, lost part of his arm in a helicopter accident. Speaking to Old Racing Cars, Moreno said that Benetton didn’t want to run a second driver alongside Nelson Piquet as a mark of respect.

However, they were obliged to do so contractually, and that’s how Moreno’s opportunity came about. The B191 was a competitive car that had scored five podiums already that season, including a third-place for Nannini just before his injury.

Thus, when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost famously collided at the start of the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix, Moreno was in a position to score a podium on his Benetton debut. Piquet led his fellow Brazilian in a one-two.

But 11 months on, Moreno suddenly lost his drive to an emerging Schumacher, who had just broken through at Jordan. In his aforementioned interview, he said he was at peace with the decision and credited former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone for ‘looking after’ him.

“I just want to say, whilst I’m talking about Benetton, that despite people thinking I might be, I was never bitter about losing my drive to Schumacher,” he said. “I’ve never been a bitter person, not at all.

“But the other reason I was never bitter was that Benetton gave me a unique opportunity, especially when you consider that I was 31 years of age when I got the Benetton drive, to show my talent in Formula 1, especially when a lot of people thought that my chance to drive for a top team had passed me by, not least because of my age, and I will never forget that.

“I left them on the very best of terms when I swapped seats with Michael. Bernie Ecclestone really helped look after me at that time, he was very influential in making sure that the move away from Benetton was done with dignity, and I’ve always appreciated that, but never actually thanked him.

“So, twenty-five years on, I’d like to put the record straight and say a huge thanks to him, and how much I appreciated his role in making things happen in a good way.”

Eddie Jordan recalled Michael Schumacher’s ‘wonder of the world’ performance in F1 test

Schumacher only featured in one race for the Jordan team before Benetton snapped him up. He immediately outqualified teammate Andrea de Cesaris at the Belgian GP, outpacing him by seven-tenths of a second.

He didn’t make it past the opening lap due to a clutch failure, but Benetton had already seen him enough. The German delivered three top-six finishes in his first three races.

The late Eddie Jordan recalled Schumacher’s first test in an interview decades on, calling it a ‘wonder of the world’. He says he’d only seen that level of speed once before – in Senna.

Sebastian Vettel picked Schumacher as the F1 GOAT, rather than Lewis Hamilton. Both drivers are tied on seven titles, though Hamilton has more wins.