The 2016 Indy Lights season was a season of

open wheel An open-wheel car is a car with the wheels outside the car's main body, and usually having only one seat. Open-wheel cars contrast with street cars, sports cars, stock cars, and touring cars, which have their wheels below the body or inside fend ...

motor racing An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gene ...

. It was the 31st season of the

Indy Lights Indy NXT (pronounced "Indy Next"), previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as INDY NXT by Firestone for sponsorship reasons. Indy NXT is the highest step on the Roa ...

series and the 15th sanctioned by

IndyCar IndyCar, LLC (stylized as INDYCAR), is an auto racing sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The organization sanctions two racing series: the premier IndyCar Series with the Indianapolis ...

, acting as the primary support series for the

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, officially known as the NTT IndyCar Series for sponsorship reasons, is the highest class of American open-wheel car racing in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of various sanctioning bodies sinc ...

. Dubai born British sophomore driver Ed Jones won the championship by a narrow two point margin over rookie Uruguayan

Santiago Urrutia Santiago Urrutia Lausarot (born 30 August 1996) is a Uruguayan racing driver. He currently competes in the World Touring Car Cup, driving for Cyan Performance Lynk & Co. He formerly competed in Indy Lights, and was the 2015 Pro Mazda series ch ...

. Jones won two races compared to Urrutia's four wins but Jones more consistently finished on the podium. American

Kyle Kaiser Kyle Kaiser (born March 5, 1996) is an American racing driver from Santa Clara, California. He won the 2017 Indy Lights Championship with Juncos Racing. He is also currently enrolled in classes part-time at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, ...

won twice and made few mistakes and finished third in points. Kaiser finished just ahead of American

Zach Veach Zachary E. Veach (born December 9, 1994) is an American auto racing driver. Veach was named to CNN's list of "Intriguing People" in May 2010, is the national spokesperson for FocusDriven, and released his first book, ''99 Things Teens Wish They ...

whose season began poorly but won three of the last ten races. Dean Stoneman and

Félix Serrallés Félix Juan Serrallés IV (born June 24, 1992) is a Puerto Rican racing driver. After gathering two second-place finishes in the Caribbean Karting Championship, Serrallés joined the Skip Barber National Championship and finished third. Afterwa ...

also captured two wins, but were much less consistent and finished fifth and sixth in the championship respectively. Swede

Felix Rosenqvist Karl Felix Helmer Rosenqvist (born 7 November 1991) is a Swedish professional racing driver who currently drives the No. 60 Honda for Meyer Shank Racing in the NTT IndyCar Series. He was named Rookie of the Year for the IndyCar Series in 2019. ...

won three races but missed much of the season due to his role as a Mercedes factory driver in Europe. Jones' Carlin team won the teams' championship and in the final race of the season, Jones' Carlin teammate Serrallés ceded fourth place to Jones on the final lap, allowing him to win the championship.

Team and driver chart

* All drivers compete in

Cooper Tire Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is an American company that specializes in the design, manufacture, marketing, and sales of replacement automobile and truck tires, and has subsidiaries that specialize in medium truck, motorcycle, and racing tires. W ...

–shod

Dallara Dallara Group S.r.l. is the largest multi-national Italian race car manufacturer, founded by its current President, Giampaolo Dallara. After working for Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and De Tomaso, in 1972 in his native village of Varano de' M ...

IL-15 chassis with

Mazda is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima (town), Fuchū, Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima, Japan. The company was founded on January 30, 1920, as Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd. ...

AER engine. *Team Pelfrey purchased the assets of 8Star Motorsports

Schedule

The 2016 schedule was released on October 27, 2015. Phoenix and Road America returned to the calendar. Long Beach was removed from the schedule, and with the IndyCar Series not returning to the Milwaukee Mile, Indy Lights will not return either. The Grand Prix of Boston was announced in late May 2015. The race was scheduled to be run on Labor Day Weekend on September 4, 2016. The proposed street circuit was based in the Boston Seaport District. On April 29, 2016, Boston newspapers reported that the race weekend, which was to include an Indy Lights support race, had been canceled. The race was replaced by a race at

Watkins Glen International Watkins Glen International, nicknamed "The Glen", is an automobile race track in the Northeastern United States, northeastern United States, located in Dix, New York, just southwest of the village of Watkins Glen, New York, Watkins Glen, at the ...

, on the same weekend. The season will expand to 18 races, two more than the previous season. All races on road courses and street circuits will be double headers with the exception of Watkins Glen, which, like the oval tracks, will have only one race. All races will be run in support of IndyCar races except the final weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, which will be a Mazda Road to Indy headliner weekend.

Race results

Championship standings

Drivers' championship

;Scoring system * The driver who qualified on pole was awarded one additional point. * An additional point was awarded to the driver who led the most laps in a race. * The driver who obtained the fastest lap in a race was awarded one additional point. * Ties in points broken by number of wins, or best finishes.

Teams' championship

References

External links

* {{Road to Indy Indy Lights seasons