(Photo credit: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
The team's winning time of 3:08.24 replaces yesterday's preliminary record of 3:12.23 set by Jones, and teammates Nathan Adrian, Ben Wildman-Tobriner, and Matt Grevers.
The win brings Phelps' second gold in his aim for a perfect eight gold medals to break Mark Spitz's (USA) record of seven gold medals at a summer Olympic Games.
The French team of Amaury Leveaux, Fabien Gilot, Frederick Bousquet and Alain Bernard finished second with a time of 3:08.32. The Australian team of Eamon Sullivan, Andrew Lauterstein, Ashley Callus and Matt Targett swam in third at 3:09.91.
"It was unbelievable! Jason (Lezak) finished the race better than we could have asked for. In the last 50 (meters), I was like, this is going to be a really close race. At the end, as you could see I was pretty excited, I was very emotional," Phelps said following the race.
