Jones secures fifth Indy top-10 finish

Dubai-based rookie Ed Jones secured his fifth top 10 finish in the Verizon IndyCar series last weekend with a seventhplace finish at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, pushing him up to 10th in the overall standings.

The 22-year-old Brit used experience of the track from having raced there on his way to winning the Indy Lights series last season to equal his best starting position to date of 11th, before finishing seventh in the race. It was his third best finish of the season after finishing third in the Indy500 and sixth in the Grand Prix of Long Beach. The result returned him to the top 10 in the table.

“Road America is one of my favourite tracks in the United States,” said Jones. “It was good to go back to a road course, and we felt well-prepared after the positive test day there. The team was also competitive at Road America last season, so we had a decent starting point and we were confident we had a good package underneath us and that the circuit should suit us.

“Practice went pretty well and we showed encouraging speed all day. The track changed quite a bit in the afternoon session, but we were still fast. The field was really close so we knew qualifying would be tough, but by the same token, there were several areas in which we could improve so I was optimistic of being able to push for the top five.

“Unfortunately, the cooler temperatures on Saturday affected a few things, and I struggled to bring the tyres in, which meant it took too long to get up to pace. It was still good to make it into the second round of qualifying, but it left us with some work to do ahead of the race.”

Jones will now travel to Iowa Speedway for testing ahead of the next round of the series — the Iowa Corn 300 — on July 9.