Jordan King says he will treat his debut season in the Verizon IndyCar Series in 2018 as a “learning year” before settinꦆg his sights on a full-season drive in the future.

Ex-Manor Formula 1 youngster King was announced as the road and street course driver foไr Ed Carpenter Racing’s #20 entry in the 2018 IndyCar season last week, filling in for team boss Ed Carpenter - who only races on ovals - at those events.

The recent Formula 2 and GP2 racer will make his IndyCar debut at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in March, but said he is staying fairly relaxed about se🍃tting any targets for his debut campaigﷺn.

“For the season, I'd like to keep my🌳self a little bit more open,” King explaine🐽d.

“I don't want to put blinkers on myself straightaway befor🐎e I've got in the ca🃏r.

“I want to be like a sponge, absorb everyth🌊ing I can, try eve﷽rything I can, and obviously do - certainly if I can win races, perfect, but it's very much going to be a learning year for me.

“The longer goal is to become a full-time IndyCar driver an🍸d work✱ towards greater things in the future.

“For me, it's really just bein✃💞g a sponge next year and having the best success I can have in my rookie year.”

Carpenter is hopeful of seeing his team return to the front of the field in IndyCar this year after a winless 2017, and while he has cooled expec🔯tations for King’s debut season, he has high hopes for the future.

“I thin🌺k obviously as a team, we have expectations to win races. We underperformed in that regard last year,” Carpenter said.

“But at the same time, I think we have to be realistic with Jordan. 𓄧I 🐻think we'll all have a better idea and be able to set some goals for himself and us as a team as we get further into this process of working together and with the new car.

“But I always have an expectation of winning races, and from my viewpoint, Jordan wouldn't be a part of the team if we didn't feel like he was th𒊎e calibre driver to be able to make that happen.”