Luiz Razia scored his first victory in Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires and gave four-time defending championship team Schmidt Peterson Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian its first win of the season in Race 2 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Fellow rookie Jack Harvey never allowed his teammate to relax, shadowing his every move throughout the 40-lap race to finish 0.6414 of a second back. Alex Baron (Belardi Auto Racing) narrowly prevailed over Race 1 winner Matthew Brabham (Andretti Autosport) for third place.
"There was a lot of pressure (from Harvey). Our cars were the same but for some reason he had the pace, but I was able to hold him off and I don't know how I did," said Razia, of Brazil. "I think I was blessed today to win this race and I feel great. The time in the race was not going by at all. For me, it felt like two hours. I just tried to keep corner by corner, shift by shift and just really live in the moment. I could keep the pace and take the win."
Razia moved to five points of Zach Veach's championship lead (229-224). Gabby Chaves of Belardi Auto Racing) is third with 215 points, followed by Brabham with 207. The Freedom 100 on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval is next up May 23. Practice and qualifying is May 22.
The RePlay XD Move of the Race Award went to Brabham for his Turn 1 pass on Chaves after the green flag. Additional contingency awards included a customized Race Energy BCM21 charger - the official battery of the ladder series - to the winning team.