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Jack Harvey confirmed for final two races with SPM

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Chris Owens

Jack Harvey will make his return to Verizon IndyCar Series competition for the final two races of the year at Watkins Glen and Sonoma, driving the No. 7 AutoNation SiriusXM SPM Honda for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, the team announced Monday morning.

The 24-year-old Englishman made his series debut in this year’s 101st Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil in a Michael Shank Racing entry with Andretti Autosport, and his results (started 27th and finished 31st) did not do justice to the effort he turned in and consistent improvement he made throughout the month at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Harvey was unlucky to get caught out by Conor Daly’s crash in Turn 3, with debris knocking his car into a spin and coming to a stop in the North Chute in-between Turns 3 and 4.

From that point, Harvey has been working tirelessly to get back in a car for further races, with Sonoma being the target point identified as early as the week after the Indianapolis 500 in Detroit.

Shank confirmed to NBC Sports last week that he wouldn’t be attending any further races beyond the remainder of his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season with his Acura NSX GT3 program, thus removing the possibility of a Shank-crewed, extra Andretti Autosport IndyCar at Sonoma.

Meanwhile Harvey’s opportunity arose at SPM - a team he twice nearly won the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires title with - following Mikhail Aleshin’s roller coaster of a season that has seen the Russian and the team go their separate ways.

Harvey stayed connected to SPM, where he made his first two IndyCar tests at Sonoma in 2015 and Mid-Ohio in 2016, and as the team’s Indy Lights driver coach last year. This year he has coached for Neil Alberico at Carlin in Indy Lights.

Rumors of Harvey’s arrival into the No. 7 SPM Honda have circulated over the last week or so and were initially reported Sunday by the Indianapolis Star, and now today’s confirmation sees the likable young driver have his first crack at a pair of road courses in an IndyCar. He won at Sonoma in Indy Lights in 2014.

“It’s obviously a really exciting time for me, and I’m really pleased to rejoin everyone here at SPM,” Harvey said. “We had a lot of success together in Indy Lights, and I’m excited to be back with so many familiar faces. I’m really looking forward to getting on track at Watkins Glen, and although I haven’t driven there, it’s definitely been a bucket list track and one that I’ve been looking forward to driving on even before I came to America.

“I’m really excited to continue this journey with AutoNation and Sirius XM – I wouldn’t be racing this season without them. I can’t thank them enough for their continued support and I hope to be able bring home two solid results for the end of the year.”

SPM general manager Piers Phillips added, “We are very pleased to welcome Jack back to the team for our final two events of the season. Jack’s done a great job for the team throughout his Indy Lights career, and we have been looking at ways of incorporating him into our IndyCar program, so it’s been wonderful to see it come to fruition. We look forward to finishing out the year with he and James and hopefully with some results up front.”

Harvey follows Aleshin, Sebastian Saavedra and Robert Wickens as drivers of the No. 7 car this season. James Hinchcliffe, who has been in the team’s No. 5 Arrow Electronics Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda all season, told NBC Sports last week that the team has done an “incredible” job handling the adverse circumstances of frequent driver changes.

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