For the second consecutive race, Conor Daly will join Harding Racing as the driver of their No. 88 Chevrolet for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio (July 29 3:00 p.m. ET, CNBC), the team confirmed in an announcement earlier on Tuesday.
Daly, who joined Harding at the Honda Indy Toronto in place of regular driver Gabby Chaves, tested with Harding at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last week - Chaves was also in attendance - and the team elected to go with Daly for another race weekend as they continue to evaluate options ahead of a possible expansion to a two-car effort in the 2019 Verizon IndyCar Series season.
Team president Brian Barnhart highlighted the progress Daly and the team made at Toronto as well as what he described as a successful Mid-Ohio test in discussing the decision to stick with Daly for a second race in a row.
“After the progress made during the Toronto race weekend, we had another successful outing in Mid-Ohio with Conor Daly. Based on that and in the interest of continuity and moving forward, we are going to run Conor again this weekend for the Honda Indy 200,” Barnhart explained.
“We still appreciate Gabby’s cooperation and interaction because he is still very much involved with downloads, team debriefs and dialogue. In our search for more information and improvement, this will be our direction for Mid-Ohio, with an eye towards the future.”
Daly finished 13th in his debut with the team at Toronto, and has finishes of sixth and tenth in two previous starts at Mid-Ohio.