Gabby Chaves was officially confirmed as Harding Racing’s full-time driver for the 2018 IndyCar season. He could very well flourish in that role.
Harding Racing are officially entering IndyCar as a full-time team in the 2018 season, and they will be doing so with 24-year-old Gabby Chaves as the driver of the #88 Chevrolet. This announcement finally came after months of speculation that it would.
In the 2017 season, the team made their debut in the 101st running of the Indianapolis with Chaves behind the wheel of the #88 Chevrolet. They ended up fielding him at Texas and Pocono, the two other superspeedways tracks, before the 2017 season came to a close.
With Chaves now officially a member of the full-time IndyCar field in the 2018 season, expect him to have success in just his fourth IndyCar season and his second season as a full-time driver in the sport.
In 2013 and 2014, Chaves drove in the Indy Lights Series for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and Belardi Auto Racing, respectively. He finished in 2nd place in the 2013 championship standings and won the 2014 championship, earning him a full-time IndyCar ride in the 2015 season driving the #98 Honda for Bryan Herta Autosport.
That season, he finished in 15th place in the championship standings with two top 10 finishes, including a career-high 9th place effort at Belle Isle. He was the series Rookie of the Year. The following season, he drove seven races for Dale Coyne Racing but finished no higher than 12th.
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In the 2017 season driving for Harding Racing in the Indianapolis 500, Chaves started back in 25th place but finished in 9th, which tied his career-high. This led to him landing rides at Texas and Pocono with the team later in the season. He then set a new career-high finish of 5th place at Texas before closing out the season with a 15th place effort at Pocono.
In 26 career IndyCar races, Chaves has just one DNF. That DNF ironically came at Pocono in 2015, a race he nearly won, and he still finished that race in 11th place. That DNF came as a result of an engine failure — he has never crashed out of a race. His only wreck to date took place in practice for the Texas race in 2016.
With Harding Racing now committed to a full-time schedule in the 2018 IndyCar season with Chaves as their confirmed full-time driver, expect Chaves to flourish with the team this year. As evidenced last season by two top 9 finishes in back-to-back races for the underfunded team, he has come a long way since his rookie season — a rookie season that he also spent driving for an underfunded team and really wasn’t all that bad to begin with.
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Where will Gabby Chaves end up in the final 2018 IndyCar championship standings? Catch the series from start to finish this season by tuning into the season-opener, the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, in just under two months on Sunday, March 11th.