Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
It was announced today by Schmidt Peterson Motorsports that Sebastian Saavedra will be driving the No. 7 Honda at the Honda Indy Toronto this weekend.
The Veteran driver has driven 62 races in his Verizon IndyCar Series career that started in 2010, which includes this year’s 101st Indianapolis500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil, where he finished 15th for Juncos Racing.
Mikhail Aleshin has driven the No. 7 SPM entry in first 11 races of the 2017, however he missed the first practice for the KOHLER grand prix of Road America on June 23 when the Russian driver had visa issues that prevented reentry into the US.
Both Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson, the co-owners of SPM, issued a statement saying that Saavedra will have sponsorship from longtime supporter Gary Peterson as well as AFS.
“We welcome the opportunity to compete with Ric and Sam at a venue where Seb and I have had great success in the past,” Gary Peterson said.
This will reunite Saavedra with his former race engineer Blair Perschbacher who worked with the Columbian driver when he drove in the Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires. The duo won the Indy Lights race in Toronto in 2010 with Andretti Autosport. The 27 year old also finished second in 2012 in the Indy Lights race at Toronto.
SPM mentioned that Aleshin will be in Toronto to support the team but neither he nor the team will be providing further comments.
