Carlin ready for racing debut in Indy Lights

Ed Jones in the Carlin #11 in testing at Barber

After strong pre-season preparations, Carlin drivers Ed Jones and Max Chilton are in Florida this week for the season opener of the Cooper Tires Indy Lights Series. The duo will race for Carlin as the team take part of their first race in the Road to Indy Series.

Having announced late in 2014 that the team would be racing stateside, Ed Jones was the first driver to be announced by the team and topped the Carlin's first ever Indy Lights test in Homestead, Florida. Also joining Carlin for development purposes ahead of his debut with Nissan in the World Endurance Championship is Max Chilton.

Speaking about his first Indy Lights race Ed Jones said, "After an extremely positive pre-season it is great to finally start racing! Carlin has done an amazing job to get the whole Indy Lights team sorted out. From the start of testing we have been really fast so I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do at St Petersburg. This weekend will mark the beginning of a new chapter in my career, as it's my first season in America and hopefully there will be many more to come!"

Team mate Chilton added "I'm really looking forward to showcasing the hard work the team have done in setting up in the USA and getting the car up to speed. Pre-season testing went better than we'd expected and I'm really looking forward to driving a new street circuit. It looks like it's going to be an interesting weekend, long races hopefully we'll get to demonstrate what a big step we've made as a European Team racing in Indy Lights.

Speaking about the team's debut Trevor Carlin said, "We're very excited about our first race in Indy Lights. A huge amount of preparation has gone in and the team have done a fantastic job to get up to speed as quickly as they have. There is still a very steep learning curve out there ahead of us but if we can leave our first race knowing we have been competitive with the front running teams we can be happy that we've made a promising start."