2014 Indy Lights

The 2014 Indy Lights season was a season of open wheel motor racing. It was the 29th season of the Indy Lights series and the 13th sanctioned by IndyCar, acting as the primary support series for the IndyCar Series. It began March 30, 2014 in St. Petersburg.^[1] The 2014 season was the first promoted by Andersen Promotions, who also promotes the other steps on the Mazda Road to Indy.

2014 Indy Lights season
Indy Lights
Season
Races	14
Start date	March 30
End date	August 24
Awards
Drivers' champion	Gabby Chaves
Teams' champion	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
Rookie of the Year	Jack Harvey
← 2013 2015 →

It was the final season for the Dallara IPS/Infiniti V8 chassis and engine package that debuted in 2002. A new chassis, to be built by Dallara, will be introduced for 2015^[2] along with an AER turbocharged 4-cylinder engine. 2014 was also the first season with Cooper Tire as the sole tire supplier, replacing Firestone who had supplied tires to the series for its entire previous existence.^[3]

Colombian-American Gabby Chaves, driving for Belardi Auto Racing captured the championship on the second tie-breaker over Schmidt Peterson Motorsports rookie Jack Harvey.

Early on, the season appeared to be a two-horse race between Chaves and Andretti Autosport's Zach Veach. However, a late-season charge by Harvey put him within striking distance of the championship. Harvey did not capture his first win until the tenth race of the season. However, Chaves managed a second-place finish in the final race of the season behind Harvey in first. Chaves and Harvey tied on points and on the first tie-breaker number of wins with four each. Chaves captured the championship by having five second-place finishes to Harvey's one.^[4] Despite a season of low car-counts where only eight drivers competed in all 14 races, six different drivers captured victories. In addition to Chaves, Harvey, and Veach, other winners included Matthew Brabham and Luiz Razia who each captured their first and only wins of the season on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and Belardi's Alexandre Baron – a race-winner in Toronto – who was in the championship hunt until reported visa issues forced him to leave the series.^[5]

Team and driver chart

• All drivers competed in Cooper Tire–shod Dallara chassis.

Team	No.	Drivers	Rounds
Andretti Autosport	26	Zach Veach[6]	All
	83	Matthew Brabham[7]	All
Belardi Auto Racing	0	Chase Austin	7
	4	Alexandre Baron[8]	1–7, 9
		Axcil Jefferies	10–11
		Ryan Phinny[9]	13–14
	5	Gabby Chaves[8]	All
Bryan Herta Autosport Jeffrey Mark Motorsport	28	Lloyd Read[10]	1–6
		Ryan Phinny[11]	9–11
Fan Force United	24	Scott Anderson[12]	All
MDL Racing	56	Matthew Di Leo	9
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	7	Luiz Razia[13]	All
	10	Juan Pablo García[14]	All
	42	Jack Harvey[15]	All
	77	Juan Piedrahita[16]	All
Team Moore Racing	2	Zack Meyer[17]	1–7, 9–11, 13–14
	22	Vittorio Ghirelli[13]	1–4
		Jimmy Simpson	10–11

Schedule

Andersen Promotions announced the 2014 Indy Lights schedule on October 24, 2013.^[1] The season consisted of 14 races held over 10 race weekends, consisting of three street circuits, three ovals, and four permanent road courses. All race weekends on permanent road courses were double-race weekends. The series returned to Sonoma Raceway for the first time since 2010. It also raced on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for the first time since 2007 in support of the new Grand Prix of Indianapolis, although the track was in a different configuration than the one raced in 2007. The series did not return to Iowa Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, or Houston despite IndyCar returning to those tracks in 2014 and did not race at the Baltimore Grand Prix as that race was cancelled for 2014.

Rnd	Date	Race Name	Track	Location
1	March 30	St. Petersburg 100	Streets of St. Petersburg	St. Petersburg, Florida
2	April 13	Long Beach 100	Streets of Long Beach	Long Beach, California
3	April 26	Legacy Indy Lights 100	Barber Motorsports Park	Birmingham, Alabama
4	April 27
5	May 9	Liberty Challenge	Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course	Speedway, Indiana
6	May 10
7	May 23	Freedom 100	Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval	Speedway, Indiana
8	July 6	Pocono Indy Lights 100	Pocono Raceway	Long Pond, Pennsylvania
9	July 20	Grand Prix of Toronto	Exhibition Place	Toronto, Ontario
10	August 2	Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio	Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course	Lexington, Ohio
11	August 3
12	August 17	Milwaukee Race	Milwaukee Mile	West Allis, Wisconsin
13	August 23	Grand Prix of Sonoma	Sonoma Raceway	Sonoma, California
14	August 24

Race results

Round	Race	Pole position	Fastest lap	Most laps led	Race Winner
					Driver	Team
1	St. Petersburg	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Zach Veach	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport
2	Long Beach	Zach Veach	Zach Veach	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Belardi Auto Racing
3	Birmingham 1	Zach Veach	Zach Veach	Zach Veach	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport
4	Birmingham 2	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Belardi Auto Racing
5	Indianapolis GP 1	Matthew Brabham	Luiz Razia	Matthew Brabham	Matthew Brabham	Andretti Autosport
6	Indianapolis GP 2	Luiz Razia	Matthew Brabham	Luiz Razia	Luiz Razia	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
7	Indianapolis	Luiz Razia	Matthew Brabham	Matthew Brabham	Gabby Chaves	Belardi Auto Racing
8	Pocono	Zach Veach	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Gabby Chaves	Belardi Auto Racing
9	Toronto	Alexandre Baron	Jack Harvey	Alexandre Baron	Alexandre Baron	Belardi Auto Racing
10	Mid-Ohio 1	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
11	Mid-Ohio 2	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
12	Milwaukee	Zach Veach	Zach Veach	Matthew Brabham	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport
13	Sonoma 1	Jack Harvey	Gabby Chaves	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
14	Sonoma 2	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Jack Harvey	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports

Championship standings

Drivers' championship

Points system

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Points	50	40	35	32	30	28	26	24	22	20	18	16

• Drivers had to complete 50% of the race distance in order to score full points, otherwise 1 point was awarded.

Pos Driver STP LBH ALA IND INDY POC TOR MOH MIL SNM Pts 1 Gabby Chaves 21 1* 6 1* 11 8 1 1* 2 2 3 3 2 2 547 2 Jack Harvey  RY  3 4 3 5 3 2 5 3 3 1* 1* 5 1* 1* 547 3 Zach Veach 1* 2 1* 3 9 7 3 2 5 4 2 1 7 3 520 4 Matthew Brabham  R  9 3 4 12 1* 4 2* 5 4 5 12 2* 6 5 424 5 Luiz Razia  R  5 5 2 4 2 1* 4 8 12 3 11 8 3 4 403 6 Juan Pablo García 7 8 7 6 6 6 6 4 8 10 6 7 4 9 372 7 Juan Piedrahita  R  6 7 10 7 8 11 8 7 7 9 5 6 5 7 337 8 Scott Anderson  R  12 9 12 10 7 5 9 6 9 8 9 4 8 10 309 9 Zack Meyer  R  8 10 9 8 4 10 10 10 7 10 9 8 274 10 Alexandre Baron  R  10 6 5 2 5 3 7 1* 261 11 Lloyd Read  R  11 11 11 9 10 9 101 12 Ryan Phinny  R  11 12 7 10 6 91 13 Vittorio Ghirelli  R  4 12 8 11 90 14 Axcil Jefferies  R  6 4 60 15 Jimmy Simpson  R  11 8 42 16 Matthew Di Leo 6 28 17 Chase Austin 11 1 Pos Driver STP LBH ALA IND INDY POC TOR MOH MIL SNM Pts

Color Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green 4th & 5th place Light Blue 6th–10th place Dark Blue Finished (Outside Top 10) Purple Did not finish Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Brown Withdrawn (Wth) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Blank Did not participate (DNP) Not competing In-line notation Bold Pole position (1 point) Italics Ran fastest race lap (1 point) * Led most race laps (1 point) 1 Qualifying cancelled no bonus point awarded Rookie

• Ties in points broken by number of wins, or best finishes.

Teams' championship

Pos	Team	Points
1	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	403
2	Andretti Autosport	370
3	Belardi Auto Racing	357
4	Fan Force United	122
5	Team Moore Racing	111
6	Bryan Herta Autosport/Jeffrey Mark Motorsport	56
7	MDL Racing	11

References

1. Mazda Road to Indy 2014 Schedule Confirmed Archived 2013-11-04 at the Wayback Machine, Andsersen Promotions PR, October 24, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-05
2. Dallara confirms new Indy Lights deal, Racer, October 31, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-05
3. DiZinno, Tony. Cooper to replace Firestone as new Indy Lights tire from 2014, NBC Sports, August 23, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-05
4. DiZinno, Tony. Gabby Chaves wins 2014 Indy Lights title on second tiebreaker, NBC Sports, August 24, 2014, retrieved 2014-08-25
5. Belardi's Chaves Scores Two Podiums at Mid-Ohio, Indy Lights, August 6, 2014, Retrieved 2014-08-25
6. Zach Veach set to return to Andretti Autosport, motorsport.com, October 20, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-05
7. Pro Mazda champion joins United Fiber & Data for 2014 Indy Lights entry, motorsport.com, October 20, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-05
8. DiZinno, Tony (March 12, 2014). "Gabby Chaves confirmed for full Indy Lights season with Belardi". MotorSportsTalk. NBC Sports. Retrieved March 12, 2014. Belardi Auto Racing has confirmed Gabby Chaves as the team's second driver [...] alongside rookie Alexandre Baron.
9. DiZinno, Tony (August 20, 2014). "Indy Lights: Ryan Phinny, Casamigos switch to Belardi for Sonoma". MotorSportsTalk. NBC Sports. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
10. Read to Race for Bryan Herta Autosport Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine, eFormulaCarNews, November 18, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-18
11. "Phinny joins Herta squad for Indy Lights, testing program". Racer. Haymarket Publications. July 11, 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-07-29. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
12. Fan Force United Returns to Indy Lights with Scott Anderson, Fan Force United, December 16, 2013, Retrieved 2013-12-16
13. "St. Petersburg 100 Entry List" (PDF). Indy Lights. IndyCar. March 25, 2014. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
14. Garcia Joins SPM Indy Lights Program Archived 2014-02-26 at the Wayback Machine, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, February 21, 2014, Retrieved 2014-02-21
15. Marshall, Dave. Racing driver Jack Harvey reveals Indy Lights deal and prepares to move to USA, ThisisLincolnshire, December 13, 2013, Retrieved 2013-12-13
16. Colombiano Juan Diego Piedrahita firmó con el equipo campeón de la Indy Lights, El Spectador, February 14, 2014, Retrieved 2014-02-14 (in Spanish)
17. Team Moore Racing Signs Meyer, eFormulaCarNews, November 5, 2013, Retrieved 2013-11-05

External links

• Indy Lights Series website