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===1978–1981: Williams===
In 1978, Jones drove for the [[Williams Grand Prix Engineering|Williams]] F1 team in [[Formula One]], but also signed with Haas-Hall racing, and competed in a [[Lola Cars|Lola]] 333CS in the [[Can-Am]] series, winning the title. Jones took nine poles in ten races but missed the [[Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca|Laguna Seca]] race due to a Formula One scheduling conflict. Stand-in [[Brian Redman]] finished twelfth in that race after the kill wire was crimped under a valve cover, resulting in intermittent ignition. Of the nine races in which he competed, Jones won five (Atlanta, Mosport, Road America, Mid-Ohio, and Riverside.) He finished second to [[Elliot Forbes-Robinson]] at Charlotte after hitting a chicane and losing a spark plug wire, retired through accident at [[Circuit Mont-Tremblant|St Jovite]] and lost a radiator at [[Watkins Glen International|Watkins Glen]]. He finished third at [[Circuit Trois-Rivières|Trois-Rivières]] after losing a shift fork and being stuck with only second and fifth gears on the tight road circuit. At that race, water-injected brakes were first used in Can-Am, developed by the Haas team and copied with varying degrees of success by others. Jones ran one Can-Am race in 1979 (Mid-Ohio), where he and [[Keke Rosberg]] finished 1–2, with Jones winning his last Can-Am start.
By late 1977, he had caught the attention of [[Frank Williams (Formula One)|Frank Williams]], who was looking to rebuild his Formula One racing team.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> [[Williams Grand Prix Engineering|Williams Grand Prix]] had struggled for success in its first years and Jones was entrusted to give them their first taste of it. He did not do much initially to do that, a second place finish at [[1978 United States Grand Prix|Watkins Glen]] being the best he could do, but he helped put the team on the Formula One map in 1979 using the [[Williams FW07]], after winning four races in the span of five events near the end of the season. Jones finished third in the championship that year, and it was the springboard to an excellent 1980 campaign. Jones's best years in Formula One had just begun, in the middle of the ground-effect era.
[[File:FORCE THL1.jpg|thumb|200px|1985 [[Haas Lola|Team Haas]] THL1 car]]
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