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.
#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis
James Holland
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
Pos | Drivers | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
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 | 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 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments