In 1994 he began his racing career, in karting, moved by his father, Jorge Donoso, who was also a race driver in Chile.
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.
Development in Argentina
He moved to Argentina where he raced in the prestigious Fórmula Renault until 2002. In 2002 he became the second Chilean driver to win a race in Argentina after Eliseo 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.
Europe
Donoso then moved to Europe, racing in European Formula 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 the British Formula One Championship.
In 2004 he moved to the World Series by Nissan. In this series, he was the teammate of Enrique 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.
He won at Infineon Raceway from the pole position, his only victory of the season, with several podiums.[1]
In a very criticized decision in his native Chile, he joined the USAC Silver Crown Series for the 2006 season; one of the oldest open-wheel series in the United States. He believed that this series could be a step to finally get to a world-class category like NASCAR or the IndyCar Series. That, and additional financial problems made Silver Crown an attractive option in spite of other series like the Infiniti Pro Series or the Champ Car Atlantic Series possibly being better suited to his goals.
USAC career
With new more formula style cars, Donoso joined the struggling series driving for Vance Racing owned by Johnny 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 team Hemelgarn Racing fielded a car for him in two rounds of the 2006 USAC Silver Crown season and Donoso delivered two 2nd places at the Iowa Speedway and Kansas Speedway.
IndyCar Series test and Indy Lights ride
With the goal of getting closer to the main series, in 2007 Donoso joined the team of the legendary A. J. Foyt, A. J. Foyt Enterprises. He raced the 2007 series with Tracy Hines as his teammate.
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 by James 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 at Infineon 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 the Kansas Speedway race he switched to Genoa Racing for the Freedom 100 and then Team PBIR for the Milwaukee race. He drove for his third team in as many races when he competed for RLR-Andersen Racing at Iowa Speedway and continued with RLR-Andersen on a part-time basis through the August race at Kentucky Speedway, which is his last start in the series.
