Jani heads Taupo free practice

Jani's best time of 1:15.971 was enough to keep him ahead of A1 Team Lebanon's Daniel Morad, while a late flyer from John Martin helped the Team Australia car up to third - an unexpected result, given that the Australian team had lost virtually the entire morning to engine problems.

The dusty surface made things tricky early on and several drivers were caught out, with turn one in particular being a place that some drivers attempted to navigate backwards.

On most occasions the drivers were able to gather themselves up and continue on, although both Netherlands and Australia stalled and prompted red flags while their cars were recovered.

The session also marked the A1GP debut for former Champ Car driver Dan Clarke, who was called up to drive for Team Great Britain due to Danny Watts being unavailable.

Clarke spent the day getting acquainted with the Powered by Ferrari car, and finished the afternoon in 18th place.

Earlier in the day, Switzerland's Alexandre Imperatori went quickest in the rookie session, aided by the two sets of Michelins that were at his disposal following Switzerland's early exit from the previous round at Sepang.

Nicolas Prost was second for France in the rookie session ahead of Lebanon's Morad, while there was some interest elsewhere along the grid when Team Monaco seat-holder Hubertus Bahlsen opted to sample his team's car.

Pos  Driver               Team           Time      Gap     Laps
 1.  Neel Jani            Switzerland    1:15.971           14
 2.  Daniel Morad         Lebanon        1:16.106  +0.135   25
 3.  John Martin          Australia      1:16.294  +0.323   25
 4.  Clivio Piccione      Monaco         1:16.458  +0.487   33
 5.  Adam Carroll         Ireland        1:16.537  +0.566   25
 6.  Chris van der Drift  New Zealand    1:16.561  +0.590   27
 7.  Filipe Albuquerque   Portugal       1:16.622  +0.651   34
 8.  Robert Doornbos      Netherlands    1:16.626  +0.655   28
 9.  Loic Duval           France         1:16.724  +0.753   23
10.  Adrian Zaugg         South Africa   1:16.732  +0.761   29
11.  Narain Karthikeyan   India          1:16.836  +0.865   29
12.  Edoardo Piscopo      Italy          1:16.847  +0.876   34
13.  Marco Andretti       USA            1:16.942  +0.971   26
14.  Salvador Duran       Mexico         1:17.078  +1.107   30
15.  Felipe Guimaraes     Brazil         1:17.220  +1.249   32
16.  Dan Clarke           Great Britain  1:17.309  +1.338   28
17.  Fairuz Fauzy         Malaysia       1:17.512  +1.541   36
18.  Cheng Cong Fu        China          1:17.627  +1.656   34
19.  Satrio Hermanto      Indonesia      1:18.329  +2.358   31