WEC Austin: Audi leads close first practice with Oliver Jarvis

Jarvis leapfrogged the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro ahead of Porsche driver Neel Jani with a 1m48.453s on what was his third from last lap of the 90-minute session.

That turned a deficit of 0.050s to the Porsche 919 Hybrid into an advantage of 0.047s.

Jani's 1m48.500s left him four tenths ahead of the second Audi with Andre Lotterer driving at the end of a session in which five of the six factory LMP1 entries ended up within the same second.

Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi, Jarvis's team-mates in the #8 Audi, also set times in the mid-1m48s.

Timo Bernhard took fourth aboard the second Porsche with a 1m49.248s, while Mike Conway was a shade over a tenth behind in the best of the Toyota TS050 HYBRIDs.

The G-Drive Racing team led the way in LMP2 with a 1m57.000s from Rene Rast aboard its Jota-run ORECA-Nissan 05.

That put him sixth tenths up on the Signatech-run DC Racing Alpine ORECA with Nelson Panciatici at the wheel.

Richard Bradley was a further three hundredths back in third in the Manor team's ORECA

Ford headed the GTE Pro times courtesy of a 2m05.457s from Stefan Mucke aboard the #66 GT.

That put him just over a tenth up on Gianmaria Bruni in the best of the AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTEs.

Davide Rigon took third spot in the a second AF Ferrari with a time a further three tenths in arrears.

The pole-winning Aston Martin Vantage GTE of the past two races was only fourth in Marco Sorensen's hands, after the British car was given a smaller diameter air-restrictor for Austin under the Balance of Peformance regulations.

Ricky Taylor was fastest in GTE Am aboard Larbre Competition's Chevrolet Corvette C7-R, in which Briton Lars Viljoen has replaced Japanese driver Yutaka Yamagishi.

Porsche factory driver Kevin Estre, who has taken the seat originally earmarked for Klaus Bachler at Austin, was second fastest in class for the Abu Dhabi-Proton squad.

FP1 TIMES