Hawksworth leads all the way in Baltimore Indy Lights race

Jack Hawksworth started on pole and led all the way to win the Baltimore GP Indy Lights race. Sage Karam was second about 14 seconds back. Gabby Chaves was third.

Peter Dempsey and Jorge Goncalvez rounded out the top-5.

The championship points chase tightened significantly with two races remaining as Carlos Munoz, the front-runner entered the race on the 2.04-mile, 12-turn street circuit made contact on Lap 6 and finished ninth.

Hawksworth, who entered the race 39 points behind, won his third street course race of the season in the No. 77 Schmidt Peterson with Curb-Agajanian car and returned to title contention.

"It was the perfect weekend for us from start to finish," he said. "We rolled off the truck, we were quick straight from the off. When it's like that it makes your life a lot easier."

Sage Karam recorded his seventh podium with the runner-up finish to seize the points lead with 373. Munoz, a three-time winner this season, is two points back and Gabby Chaves, who finished third, has 369 points. Hawksworth is fourth with 362 points and Peter Dempsey is still in contention with 338 points.

SAGE KARAM (No. 8 Schmidt Peterson c/w Curb-Agajanian): “My engineer, we were joking around before the race, he's like, You better have the lead. Turn three on the first lap, we came close. Got up to second from fourth. I managed to slot into the inside in turn one in front of Dempsey which set us up. Able to get a good run through turn one. Gabby and Munoz, I don't know if they hit. They didn't have as good of a run. I was able to close a little bit, ran down the inside, took second. Really Gabby was pushing me hard throughout the whole race. I had to defend a little bit. He's a great competitor. He knows how to pass. But I know there's no team orders or anything. Every man for himself. He was a tough guy to hold off. We missed the setup just a little bit. I think we had a little bit too much understeer to start the race. Didn't have anything for Jack. Once I knew that, it was pretty much secure as many points as we could, try to get second."

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