Plainfield, IL (July 25, 2017) – Dale Coyne Racing and drivers Esteban Gutierrez and Ed Jones will be back in action this weekend as the Verizon IndyCar Series moves to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course July 27 – 30, for the Honda Indy 200, round 13 of the 2017 season.

As has been the case for all but one of his races this season, Gutierrez will be making his first official appearance at the 2.258-mile, 13-turn road course. However, the driver of the #18 Unifin car along with his teammate Jones, took part in a successful one-day test last Thursday at the Ohio track with the team.

While Jones will be taking part in his first Verizon IndyCar Series race at Mid-Ohio, the reigning Indy Lights Champion does have experience around the demanding yet fun road course, with four Indy Lights races under his belt the last two years. Jones has a best finish of sixth, registered last season.

Jones and Gutierrez will be able to continue preparing for the Honda Indy 200 with three 45-minute practice sessions, two on Friday and one on Saturday, ahead of Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session.

Qualifying will be broadcast live on NBCSN on Saturday, July 29 from 2:00pm ET with the race being broadcast live on CNBC on Sunday, July 30 starting at 3:00pm ET. An encore presentation will be broadcast later that evening at 7:00pm ET on NBCSN.

What they have to say:

Esteban Gutierrez – #18 Unifin Honda
“It’s very exciting to get to know another track. I tested there last week with the team. I think it was a very productive test. It helped me, once again, to understand the car better. Every time that we try something new, it helps me learn more and that then allows me to be more effective on a race weekend as I’m able to understand what direction we need to take to make the #18 Unifin car quicker. The test helped me a lot with that, and obviously to learn the track. It’s a track with high speed corners, very short, but it’s a track that’s very fun to drive. I really enjoyed it and I’m now really looking forward to racing there. In terms of objectives for the weekend, I want to keep on learning and it would be nice to reach the top 10. We know that it’s been a pretty steep learning curve for me in IndyCar but we’ve made some progress and hopefully we can make our way into the top 10 pretty soon.”

Ed Jones – #19 Boy Scouts of America Honda
“We had a really good test last week at Mid-Ohio. It was very positive and we worked on a lot of things. The car seemed pretty fast compared to others that were there. As we saw at Road America, it’s beneficial to be able to test somewhere before we race there. It can give you an advantage early on and hopefully we can produce another good result because of it. It’s a really difficult track, very technical, but it’s a lot of fun to drive. I think a lot of the race results will be decided by qualifying because it’s very difficult to overtake. That’s one area where we really need to work hard to get the Boy Scouts car right for.”