Practice report
WEC Austin
Austin WEC: Jarvis tops first practice session for Audi
Audi’s Oliver Jarvis led the way in the opening free practice session for Saturday’s 6 Hours of COTA, round six of the FIA World Endurance Championship in Austin.
Charles Bradley
Edited: Sep 16, 2016, 10:54 AM
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With the air temperature at over 34C and a track temp of 43C, Austin gave the WEC field a rather warm welcome. The battle at the top of the times followed the regular script, with Audi and Porsche trading blows as expected.
The #8 Audi set the initial pace on 1m48.617s, which Loic Duval – who shares with Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi – lowered to 1m48.550s with 20 mins to go. That lap was +0.272s quicker than the sister #7 car’s 1m48.889s at the time, which the returning Benoit Treluyer spun near the end of the session.
Points leader Neel Jani then unleashed the #2 Porsche’s potential. In a relentless stint, he rose to P3 on 1m49.056s, then to P2 with a lap of 1m48.817s, and then P1 on 1m48.500s, topping Duval by 0.05s.
In the closing moments, however, Jarvis beat that by 0.047s with a 1m48.453s. It meant the pecking order was set: Audi-Porsche-Audi-Porsche.
Timo Bernhard was fourth fastest in the #1 Porsche with a lap of 1m49.248s, three quarters of a second off the pace.
Toyota took its customary fifth and sixth spots, with the #6 ahead of the #5 by three tenths thanks to a late lap from Mike Conway. That put him within 0.9s the pace of Toyota’s factory LMP1 rivals.
In LMP2, the pacesetting #26 G-Drive Oreca – crewed by Rene Rast, Alex Brundle and Roman Rusinov – led the way as usual, ahead of the #35 Signatech Alpine, the #44 Manor Oreca and the #36 points-leading Signatech.
Ford led the way in GTE Pro, with #66 Ford GT of Stefan Mucke/Olivier Pla setting a late 2m05.457s to pip the #51 488 of Gianmaria Bruni/James Calado by a tenth.
There was a 5-minute stop/go penalty for the sister #71 AF Corse Ferrari of Sam Bird and Davide Rigon for exceeding track limits too many times.
It was a troubled session for the points-leading #97 Aston, as Fernando Rees stopped out on track after Darren Turner went off at Turn 1 in the early stages of the session.
In GTE Am, the #50 Larbre Corvette was fastest in Pierre Ragues’ hands. The car has featured a late driver change, with Lars Viljoen replacing Yutaka Yamagishi in a line-up that also features Ricky Taylor.
WEC 2016 Austin FP1
PosDriversCarTimeGap 1 
Lucas di Grassi
Loic Duval
Oliver Jarvis Audi R18 1'48.453 2 Romain Dumas
Neel Jani
Marc Lieb Porsche 919 Hybrid 1'48.500 0.047 3 Andre Lotterer
Marcel Fassler
Benoit Tréluyer Audi R18 1'48.889 0.436 4 
Mark Webber
Timo Bernhard
Brendon Hartley Porsche 919 Hybrid 1'49.248 0.795 5 Stéphane Sarrazin
Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway Toyota TS050 Hybrid 1'49.361 0.908 6
Kazuki Nakajima
Sébastien Buemi
Anthony Davidson
Toyota TS050 Hybrid 1'49.709 1.256 7 Alexandre Imperatori
Dominik Kraihamer
Matheo Tuscher Rebellion R-One 1'54.479 6.026 8 Simon Trummer
Oliver Webb
Pierre Kaffer CLM P1/01 1'56.117 7.664 9 
Roman Rusinov
René Rast
Alex Brundle Oreca 05 1'57.000 8.547 10 Nelson Panciatici
Ho-Pin Tung
David Cheng Alpine A460 1'57.613 9.160 11 Richard Bradley
Matthew Rao
Roberto Merhi Oreca 05 1'57.647 9.194 12 Nicolas Lapierre
Gustavo Menezes
Stéphane Richelmi Alpine A460 1'57.999 9.546 13 Pipo Derani
Ryan Dalziel
Chris Cumming Ligier JS P2 1'58.753 10.300 14 Nick Leventis
Jonny Kane
Lewis Williamson Gibson 015S 1'58.811 10.358 15 Scott Sharp
Ed Brown
Johannes van Overbeek Ligier JS P2 1'59.020 10.567 16 Bruno Senna
Ricardo Gonzalez
Filipe Albuquerque Ligier JS P2 1'59.895 11.442 17 Vitaly Petrov
Viktor Shaytar
Kirill Ladygin BR01 1'59.951 11.498 18 
Maurizio Mediani
Nicolas Minassian BR01 2'00.127 11.674 19 Stefan Mücke
Olivier Pla Ford GT 2'05.457 17.004 20 Gianmaria Bruni
James Calado Ferrari 488 GTE 2'05.560 17.107 21 Sam Bird
Davide Rigon Ferrari 488 GTE 2'05.823 17.370 22 
Marco Sorensen
Nicki Thiim Aston Martin Vantage V8 2'06.634 18.181 23 Richard Lietz
Michael Christensen Porsche 911 RSR (2016) 2'06.899 18.446 24 Harry Tincknell
Andy Priaulx
Marino Franchitti Ford GT 2'07.224 18.771 25 Pierre Ragues
Ricky Taylor
Lars Viljoen Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06 2'07.412 18.959 26 Darren Turner
Fernando Rees Aston Martin Vantage V8 2'07.518 19.065 27 David Heinemeier Hansson
Kevin Estre
Khaled Al Qubaisi Porsche 911 RSR 2'07.843 19.390 28 Michael Wainwright
Adam Carroll
Ben Barker Porsche 911 RSR 2'08.374 19.921 29 François Perrodo
Emmanuel Collard
Rui Aguas Ferrari F458 Italia 2'08.636 20.183 30 Christian Ried
Wolf Henzler
Joel Camathias Porsche 911 RSR 2'09.064 20.611 31 Pedro Lamy
Paul Dalla Lana
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Vantage V8 2'09.113 20.660
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