Indy Lights: Jones wins on Carlin's debut

Ed Jones dominated the weekend's opening Indy Lights race on the streets of St Petersburg to give Carlin a victory in its first North American race.

Jones, who is also making his Lights debut this weekend, started from pole and was never headed. His lead over the pursuing Jack Harvey stretched to nearly five seconds in the latter stages before he eased off to settle for a victory margin of 3.7sec.

"It was a good start for me. I got the jump on Max and from there it was just about keeping my head down and getting the laps in," related Jones. "Later into the race it was a matter of keeping the car stable and not going too hard on power. I had a massive moment near the end, in the double right-hander. I got very close to the wall, but I managed to keep hold of it. After that, it was fine. You could really feel the difference with the push-to-pass feature. I didn't have to use it to pass today but for overtaking in the future, it will really help out. Now we'll work with the engineers and try to make it better for tomorrow."

Reigning Pro Mazda champion Spencer Pigot completed the podium, with Carlin's hopes of converting its sweep of the front row into a race one-two having ended after just four corners when Max Chilton and Felix Serralles collided. Both were eliminated on the spot.

A broken front wing also ended Matthew Brabham's hopes of fighting for the win, although he consoled himself by setting a new Lights race record for St Pete when he rejoined the field two laps down, but sporting a set of new tires. The Andretti driver's 1m06.471s lap was almost 0.8s faster than the previous benchmark set by Sebastian Saavedra.

RESULTS - 30 LAPS:

Originally on Autosport.com