Sonoma Indy Lights: Gabby Chaves takes title as Jack Harvey wins

Harvey's title hopes depended upon him winning the race with Chaves finishing no higher than third and he did all he could to uphold his end of the bargain.

After the first two starts were waved off, Harvey shot away on the third attempted start and was never threatened, eventually crossing the line with a victory margin of 18.7018 seconds.

Unfortunately for him, Chaves was equally untroubled in second, and with his closest pursuer more than 13s behind him, the Belardi driver was under no pressure to try to hunt Harvey down.

He and Harvey finished the season equal on points, with Chaves earning the crown on a countback to second places.

"This is a dream come true," Chaves said. "We've worked so hard for this."

Juan Piedrahita capitalised on an early mistake by Luiz Razia to move up to third and spent most of the race heading a queue of cars led by former title aspirant Zach Veach.

It was 26 laps before Veach and Razia were able to find a way around Piedrahita, who yielded another couple of places when he was spun by Juan Pablo Garcia on the following lap.

All of that finally gave Veach the clear space he needed to try to catch Chaves, but 10 laps was never going to be enough to close an 18s gap and the Andretti driver was forced to settle for a distant third.

The race marks the retirement for the current-spec Indy Lights car, which will be replaced by the new Dallara IL-15 next season.

                                          
Results - 38 laps:                             
                                               
Pos  Driver             Team           Time/Gap
 1.  Jack Harvey        Schmidt     58m14.2930s 
 2.  Gabby Chaves       Belardi       +18.7018s
 3.  Zach Veach         Andretti      +32.4914s
 4.  Luiz Razia         Schmidt       +33.2358s
 5.  Matthew Brabham    Andretti      +36.5547s
 6.  Ryan Phinny        BHA/JMM       +50.7464s
 7.  Juan Piedrahita    Schmidt       +56.3180s
 8.  Zack Meyer         Moore       +1m07.8300s
 9.  Juan Pablo Garcia  Schmidt          -1 lap
                                               
Retirements                                    
                                               
     Scott Anderson     Fan Force       29 laps