Chaves takes Indy Lights title as Harvey wins Sonoma finale

Jack Harvey dominated Sunday's Indy Lights season finale at Sonoma, although the Brit's win was not enough to prevent title rival Gabby Chaves from securing the championship on a tiebreak.

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

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

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

"It was the longest race of my life! There was no reason to push to keep up with Jack – it's a game of speed, but it's also a game of consistency and strategy. We really won the title with tire strategy this weekend. I knew that if I got the bonus point Saturday for the fastest lap, I could finish second in both races and win. But it was just a mix of happiness and excitement at the end."

Chaves indicated he was hopeful of taking the next step to the IndyCar Series next year: "I was asked about the future yesterday and I said that if I won, I was sure I could figure out something for IndyCar next year."

Juan Piedrahita capitalized 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 18sec 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.