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| Pablo Donoso Prado | |
|---|---|
| Nationality |  Chilean |
| Born | (1984-12-03)December 3, 1984 (age 40) Santiago de Chile |
| Firestone Indy Lights Series | |
| Years active | 2008-2009 |
| Teams | SWE Racing Team Moore Racing Brian Stewart Racing Genoa Racing Team PBIR RLR-Andersen Racing |
| Starts | 25 |
| Wins | 1 |
| Poles | 1 |
| Best finish | 7th in 2008 |
| Previous series | |
| 2006-2007 2005 2004 2003 2002 | USAC Silver Crown Star Mazda Series World Series by Nissan World Series Light by Nissan ArgentineFormula Renault |
Pablo Donoso Prado (born December 3, 1984) is a professional racing driver fromSantiago de Chile. He began racing at nine years of age. He raced in theFirestone Indy Lights Series and passed the Rookie Test for theIndy Racing LeagueIndyCar Series on February 29, 2008 atHomestead-Miami Speedway.
In 1994 he began his racing career, inkarting, moved by his father, Jorge Donoso, who was also a race driver inChile.
Since that year and until 1999, he raced karting in the Chilean and Argentine championships with a total of 18 wins and 32 podiums, with two sub-championships and the 1996 title.
He moved toArgentina where he raced in the prestigiousFórmula Renault until 2002. In 2002 he became the second Chilean driver to win a race in Argentina afterEliseo Salazar who won in the 1978 Formula 4. That year, his results took him to the fight for the championship against the Argentine Juan Cruz Alvarez up to the final round, finally with a 2nd place overall.
Donoso then moved to Europe, racing in EuropeanFormula BMW Junior with a total of 4 wins, 2 poles, and 4 podiums. Again, he matched Salazar to be the second Chilean to win a European race since the Eliseo's 1980 win in theBritish Formula One Championship.
In 2003 he raced in theWorld Series Light by Nissan with the Chilean beer brand Cristal as his main sponsor and backed by his manager, former race driver,Cristián Mackenna. That year Donoso got one win at theEuroSpeedway Lausitz circuit with theVergani Racing Team.
In 2004 he moved to theWorld Series by Nissan. In this series, he was the teammate ofEnrique Bernoldi, a former F1 driver. At this level, he didn't succeed and he was forced to leave his seat in the middle of the season due to budget issues.
In 2004, he finished his contract with Mackenna and got in touch withEliseo Salazar to redirect his career to the US. Looking for a small racing series to compete in with specified equipment and lower budgets, he joined theStar Mazda Series in 2005. He raced in the series withAndersen Walko Racing, competing against drivers likeMarco Andretti,Graham Rahal,Jonathan Klein andRaphael Matos among others.
He won atInfineon Raceway from the pole position, his only victory of the season, with several podiums.[1]
In a very criticized decision in his nativeChile, he joined theUSAC Silver Crown Series for the 2006 season; one of the oldestopen-wheel series in theUnited States. He believed that this series could be a step to finally get to a world-class category likeNASCAR or theIndyCar Series. That, and additional financial problems made Silver Crown an attractive option in spite of other series like theInfiniti Pro Series or theChamp Car Atlantic Series possibly being better suited to his goals.
With new more formula style cars, Donoso joined the struggling series driving for Vance Racing owned byJohnny Vance. At the first races of 2006 he was able to show his potential but suffered from mechanical problems. The criticism in Chile was rising, meanwhile, many oval specialists congratulated him for this natural ability to handle the somewhat unusual cars.
The IndyCar teamHemelgarn Racing fielded a car for him in two rounds of the 2006 USAC Silver Crown season and Donoso delivered two 2nd places at theIowa Speedway andKansas Speedway.
With the goal of getting closer to the main series, in 2007 Donoso joined the team of the legendaryA. J. Foyt,A. J. Foyt Enterprises. He raced the 2007 series withTracy Hines as his teammate.
On Friday 29th, Donoso passed the IndyCar Series rookie test atHomestead Miami Speedway usingDarren Manning's car underJohnny Rutherford's supervision. After that, Foyt said that Donoso would become his second driver for the2008 IndyCar Series season. However, he would start the season racing in theFirestone Indy Lights Series forSWE Racing, signing with the team for four races. Donoso was not entered in theIndianapolis 500 with Foyt's team, the seat instead going toJeff Simmons. Donoso continued in Indy Lights with Team Moore Racing beginning with theFreedom 100. At the race after the Freedom 100, Donoso won his first series pole at theMilwaukee Mile.
Donoso scored his first podium finish in Indy Lights competition in the time-shortened second Mid Ohio 100 race. He finished 3rd in a race won byJames Davison. However, he parted ways with Team Moore after that race and was entered in Brian Stewart Racing's #3 car for the following race. He returned to Team Moore for the next pair of races atInfineon Raceway and captured his first series win in the weekend's second race as he started from the pole due to the field inversion from race 1.
Donoso signed to race in the Indy Lights in 2009 with Brian Stewart Racing. However, after theKansas Speedway race he switched toGenoa Racing for the Freedom 100 and thenTeam PBIR for the Milwaukee race. He drove for his third team in as many races when he competed forRLR-Andersen Racing atIowa Speedway and continued with RLR-Andersen on a part-time basis through the August race atKentucky Speedway, which is his last start in the series.
| Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Rank | Points | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | SWE Racing | HMS 21 | STP1 14 | STP2 17 | KAN 12 | 8th | 358 | [2] | ||||||||||||
| Team Moore Racing | INDY 19 | MIL 7 | IOW 5 | WGL1 5 | WGL2 5 | NSH 10 | MDO1 10 | MDO2 3 | SNM1 8 | SNM2 1 | CHI 13 | |||||||||
| Brian Stewart Racing | KTY 22 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2009 | Brian Stewart Racing | STP 1 14 | STP 2 26 | LBH 11 | KAN 19 | 19th | 147 | [3] | ||||||||||||
| Genoa Racing | INDY 9 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Team PBIR | MIL 11 | |||||||||||||||||||
| RLRAndersen Racing | IOW 12 | WGL 8 | TOR | EDM | KTY 16 | MDO | SNM | CHI | HMS |