Ed Jones “finding the limit” of an IndyCar

Jones, who will partner four-time Champ Car title winner Sebastien Bourdais at Coyne’s team, had the Frenchman shake down the #18 car before stepping in himself.

“It was my first ever test at Sebring so there was a lot of learning to do,” Jones told Motorsport.com. “I did the most laps of anyone, and I feel happy with how the day went – I made a lot of progress. I don’t know how many more tests I’ll have before the season starts so we needed to make it count.”

Jones had tried an IndyCar before, piloting Graham Rahal’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda at Watkins Glen last summer he explained the situation was very different.

“That day with RLLR was more to help the team and aid the other driver,” he said, “whereas this test, today and tomorrow, everything’s there to help me in terms of setup. So this was the first proper day of testing.

“As well as all the laps, I also practiced pit stops, and was getting myself totally familiar with the controls in the car. It was a lot of stuff to learn, and quite mentally draining to do all in one day.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow because I feel I’ll make more gains. I think I’ll wake up and get in the car and it will all feel a lot more natural.”

Regarding his race engineer Michael Cannon, Jones commented: “I think we worked well together, and ran through everything we wanted to do. He was happy, and he was also doing a lot of technical work to the car. They’ve found a lot of changes, so it was a good day from the team’s perspective too.”

Jones said that today he was focusing on adapting himself to the car, while the team had not yet started to tune the car to his handling preferences.

“The priority today was getting me where I was comfortable,” he said. “The Indy Lights car is good preparation in terms of handling, but with this IndyCar, you can just go so deep into the corner, it’s difficult for you to make that jump really quickly and find the limit.

“In terms of the engine, the power jump [from 450hp to 720hp] is big, too, but it was the first time I’d been in a proper racecar since middle of September last year, so on your first day back, everything feels a lot faster, more extreme than you remember.

“Tomorrow, I think we’ll be able to focus more on tuning the car’s handling to how I like it.”

One of the characteristics of Jones’ driving style in Indy Lights was that he made smooth inputs on the steering-wheel, but he admitted that he hadn’t yet been able to apply that in an IndyCar.

“I still need to find the ultimate limit of the car,” he commented. “I’m still missing a little bit and until I get there, it’s hard to adopt that driving style. Once I get to that limit, I’m sure driving smooth will be very useful, and to my advantage.

“Tire degradation is good – I like having that change, that challenge. I think that was another of the big things I noticed today – the grip level from new tires. I was really impressed with how big a jump it was.

“The Cooper tires [from Indy Lights] were generally very low-degradation, very hard, so when they were cold it was like driving on ice. In IndyCar, the Firestones you can push immediately, and that was something I had to get used to. It’s quite nice to mash the throttle on your first lap!”