The Grand Prix of Portland is set to be the 13th race of the 2018 IndyCar season in which Gabby Chaves competes, but it may be his last IndyCar race of the year.
After driving in the first 11 races of the 2018 IndyCar season for Harding Racing and then being replaced by Conor Daly in the next three, Gabby Chaves made his return to the series in this past weekend’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at Gateway Motorsports Park.
This weekend, the 25-year-old Colombian is set to return to the cockpit of the #88 Harding Racing Chevrolet in the Grand Prix of Portland, the 105-lap race around the 12-turn, 1.967-mile (3.166-kilometer) Portland International Raceway road course in Portland, Oregon, a track at which he has never driven. This track has not hosted an IndyCar race since the 2007 Champ Car season.
However, this race, which is the penultimate race of the 17-race season, may end up being Chaves’s final IndyCar race of the year, according to RACER. The IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway is the lone race on this year’s schedule after the Grand Prix of Portland, and he is not expected to drive in it.
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Chaves, who made his IndyCar debut in the 2015 season, his lone full-time season in the sport so far, is still expected to return to Harding Racing next year.
Harding Racing are in their first full-time season in IndyCar after fielding an entry for Chaves in the three superspeedway races last season, and they have taken the opportunity to look toward their future by giving another driver seat time in what was initially poised to be the car driven full-time by Chaves. While many drivers may not have handled this situation gracefully, Chaves has done exactly that, and he has been a very supportive teammate in the team’s development process.
If this weekend’s race at Portland International Raceway does end up being Chaves’s final IndyCar race of 2018, Daly would naturally be an option to drive the #88 Harding Racing Chevrolet at Sonoma Raceway given the fact that he has driven in three races for the team so far this season.
Zachary Claman DeMelo, the part-time Dale Coyne Racing who made his IndyCar debut in last season’s race at Sonoma Raceway driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, might also be an option. He had been tipped to drive the #88 Harding Racing Chevrolet in two of the final four races of this season with him having no more races to contest as the driver of the #19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda this year.
However, these two races were the races at Pocono Raceway and Gateway Motorsports Park, and he did not end up driving in either one of them. It is unknown if the team would consider him to drive for them in the race at Sonoma Raceway.
What kind of momentum will Gabby Chaves build up in this weekend’s Grand Prix of Portland to take into the 2019 IndyCar season if this race does indeed end up being his final IndyCar race of 2018? Tune in to NBC Sports Network at 2:30 p.m. ET this Sunday, September 2 to find out.