By alley - May 11, 2016, 4:57 PM ET

INDYCAR: Chaves lands Coyne seat for Indy

Gabby Chaves has signed a two-race deal to pilot Dale Coyne Racing's No.19 entry at this weekend's GP of Indy and the Indianapolis 500.

Last year's Indy 500 rookie of the year has spent the past few months

scrambling to secure a seat

for this year's race after his former team BHA aligned with Andretti Autosport over the winter to run Alexander Rossi, and said that he is delighted to have finally gotten the deal done.

"What can I say, I'm really excited," he said. "It's been the longest off-season of my life. Throughout my whole career I've always been on the grid in the first race of the season, and this has been the first time that I haven't. I thought I had many deals in place before and for some reason or another it never came through.

"I've been speaking with Dale for years now and I'm excited to get something going with him and the team. I'm just really looking forward to it. With my time out of the car, I've really been able to value what it means to me to be in a race car. I can now get back on track and enjoy it even more."

This weekend's race will be Chaves' 17th career start, and his first for the 2016 season.

"We're very excited to have Gabby join us for the next two races," said Dale Coyne. "We've been in communication for a long time and it's all finally come together. He showed a lot of maturity last season, he was quick, mistake-free and made great decisions behind the wheel that you don't normally see coming from a rookie. We look forward to seeing what he can do in our No. 19 car."

Chaves' opportunity comes at the expense of Luca Filippi, who occupied the No. 19 during the first four races of the season. With the Colombian having stepped into an entry that was already confirmed for the 500, the car count for the 100th running still stands at 33.