Ed Jones has looked nothing like a rookie during his first two Verizon IndyCar Series races. The reigning Indy Lights champion left St. Petersburg with a solid 10th and completed his second trouble-free street race to earn a stellar sixth on the streets of Long Beach.

With two top-10 finishes to open his IndyCar account with Dale Coyne Racing and his prevent vantage point of seventh in the championship standings, the young Briton is making all the right impressions.

"That's two races in a row where you want to see a rookie finish so he can see how the whole thing works," said DCR's Michael Cannon, who engineers the heady 22-year-old. "I think the fact that he finished St. Pete helped everything to make sense for him here. Very, very encouraging."

Echoing Cannon's assessment, Jones agreed with his engineer and credited his team owner for all he's been able to achieve so far.

"For me, I'm still nowhere near my potential and have a long way to go," Jones said. "The testing has been great, but the races are so valuable and you learn so much more. It's full credit to Dale with all the investment he's put into the team. Hopefully we can take the steps we've made these two races and bring them into Barber."

Jones started 13th, drove a mostly clean race, and used a magnificent final pit stop by his No. 19 Honda to work his way forward as the laps wound down.

"We were stuck behind Kanaan and Aleshin, waiting for them to pit, and when they did, we pushed like mad," he said. "I hit the wall, pretty hard, two times on my 'push lap' trying to build a gap, and the guys nailed the stop, got me to P9 or 10, and then I kept working from there."

With the Barber Motorsports Park road course up next on the IndyCar calendar, Jones has his sights set on continuing the top-10 trend in Alabama.

"I came into this weekend and wanted to be in the top 10, and we checked that off," he said. "I wanted to be in the Fast 12 and we missed that by a tenth, so that's the next thing I want and more top 10s, obviously. We're happy with the result, but you can't be too 'up' about it because I have so much more work to do. When I get there and can say I put every single thing together, I'll be celebrating a lot more."

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