Toronto, Ontario (June 14, 2015) - Toronto, Ontario - June 14, 2015 - Schmidt Peterson Motorsports drivers Conor Daly and James Jakes finished twelfth and twenty-first, respectively, on Sunday afternoon at the Honda Indy Toronto.
American driver Daly, filling in for the injured James Hinchcliffe in the No. 5 Arrow Electronics car, started 19th. In just the first five laps, he had gained two spots, but then miscalculated turn eight and ended up in the runoff. He stayed focused for the remainder of the 85-lap race to finish twelfth.
"At the beginning, it was really interesting in the wet but the No. 5 Arrow Electronics car was really good as usual and we started making up positions," said Daly. "I just made a mistake going into turn eight and had to spin it around. I just didn't want to take the chance so that was a bit of a shame. We still ended up coming back and the car was really sgood on dry tires.
"I wish we'd had that setup in qualifying. It felt really good and I'm really happy with the progress we made. We didn't get a top ten but I think we had a good pace today and we definitely made a lot of progress with the car, which is a great thing overall."
Jakes started in twelfth in the No. 7 MediaTech car and had advanced to tenth by lap 12. On lap 28, he came in for a pit stop. On the out lap, cold tires caused him to slide into the turn five tires, causing slight front wing damage. The British driver would spend the remainder of the race fighting to stay with the field and eventually finished twenty-first.
"It was a very disappointing day," said Jakes. "I just made a mistake in turn five. It's just all my fault on cold tires. It's a shame because we've had one of the quickest Honda cars all weekend and we set the quickest race lap for Hondas as well.
"We were right there at the start of the race. It was just a stupid mistake on my part so I'm sorry to the guys. They worked hard all weekend and now we move onto Fontana after a weekend off."
The second Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires was as chaotic as the first. Scott Anderson spun and made contact with the wall early in the race, bending the rear toe link. He was able to get back out but only ran 17 laps before finishing tenth.
RC Enerson's No. 7 crew was able to completely rebuild his car after Saturday's crash. He earned a fifth place finish on Sunday. Ethan Ringel made contact with the wall on lap ten but was also running when the checkered flag fell with an 11th place finish.
Jack Harvey was the SPM Indy Lights story of the day with several great passes, a clean race and another second place finish.
"It was a solid weekend," said Harvey. "After a disappointing qualifying session, the fact that we were able to end the weekend with two second-place finishes shows just how good of a team I have at SPM. We always keep working. Today was just about keeping it out of the wall and not making mistakes. At the end of the day, I was happy to finish where we did but I want to win races so we will have to keep pushing to make that happen."
After ten weekends consecutive weekends on track, the Verizon IndyCar Series will take a weekend off before heading to Fontana, California in two weeks. The MAVTV American Reel 500 will take place at Auto Club Speedway on Saturday, June 27 at 4:30 p.m. ET.
The Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires will race next at the historic Milwaukee Mile on Sunday, July 12 at 12 p.m. ET.
