AUSTIN, Texas – After suffering a broken ring finger during a hard crash in the season-opening NTT IndyCar Series Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10, Ed Jones of Dubai has been cleared to drive this weekend at Circuit of the Americas.
Jones drives the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Scuderia Corsa Chevrolet. He was examined by IndyCar Medical Director Dr. Geoffrey Billows, who cleared Jones to compete in this weekend’s IndyCar Classic at COTA.
“We are hoping to come back stronger at COTA,” Jones said. “St. Pete was a challenging weekend, but we kept working through things and made really good progress. The team worked very hard to get me comfortable with the car, and I was very confident in it. It was unfortunate the way qualifying ended up and the crash was super frustrating, but we had really strong pace and the car was very good.
“If we continue working the way we did in St. Pete, I feel that we will have a solid weekend in COTA.”
Jones sustained a small non-displaced fracture of the distal fourth metacarpal in his left ring finger when his No. 20 Chevrolet hit the wall during the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. AJ Foyt Racing driver Matheus Leist was also involved in the crash after he hit Jones car after it had come to stop following the first contact.
Jones met with a hand surgeon in Miami in the days following the race and had the hand properly splinted.
IndyCar Classic activities begin with practice on Friday. NTT P1 Award qualifying is scheduled for Saturday with the 60-lap race on 3.41-mile permanent road course taking place Sunday (1 p.m. ET, NBCSN).