Squire said:
As you say, I picked him, and he was pretty nailed on for a spot in my team. He was not really on my radar before I started doing research for my CQ team. But his results in the Tour of Britain impressed me, and he was going to be the main sprinter for Delko, which means a fantastic calendar for scoring CQ points. What convinced me was his absolute confidence in making it to the WT in a year or two, and his previous results. I checked race reports and tweets, and saw that when he didn't get results last year, it was either due to crashes/bad luck, or the team riding for Alex Frame instead. I absolutely didn't get the impression that Brenton Jones sucks.
I'm happy that he's delivering so far, and I believe the Delko racing calendar will mean plenty of easy points for him. I would actually have been pretty disappointed if he didn't rip it up in Gabon. But it's still early days, of course. It remains to be seen how he handles a full European calendar. But I'm quite surprised he's only picked by four players.
Well, agree with Squires expectations for Gabon. We'll only know the true extention of his potential when reaching the European racing.
My main reason for picking Jones was that I for some years have bookmarked him as a rider to watch for these CQ competitions, and with a switch to Delko he's now in a perfect environment. I didn't look into old race reports as Squire, but I read some interviews where Jones himself expressed clear ambitions as a team leader and desire to hit the ground running. And that he did
Let's see if he can continue in Etoile De Besseges against the likes of Coquard, Capiot, Boudat and Dupont, which is more like the competition he'll usually have in the French calendar.