Audi leads Fuji WEC Friday practice

Audi ended up with the quickest times of the day in the opening two sessions of free practice ahead of Sunday's sixth round of the World Endurance Championship at Fuji.

Anthony Davidson was fastest for Toyota in practice one in the morning, but Audi took the top two spots on the time sheets in the faster afternoon session.

Loic Duval was half a second quicker than team-mate Marcel Fassler in the two Audi R18 e-tron quattros. The Frenchman set his best lap of 1m27.333s in the closing minutes of the session to leapfrog Fassler.

Prior to Duval's lap, the two Audis and the two Toyota TS030 Hybrids had been separated by just over three tenths of a second. Stephane Sarrazin set the fastest Toyota lap of the two sessions with a 1m27.977s, which was four thousandths ahead of Kazuki Nakajima in the sister car.

The LMP2 order was led by Mike Conway in the best of the G-Drive/Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan 03s. The Briton's time of 1m32.662s was half a second ahead of nearest challenger Bjorn Wirdheim in the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan Z11SN run at Fuji under the Gainer International banner.

Aston Martin driver Frederic Makowiecki's first-session lap of 1m39.548s was the fastest time of the day in GTE Pro. That put him exactly three tenths ahead of team-mate Richie Stanaway, who topped the times in second practice.

Paolo Ruberti was quickest in GTE Am aboard the Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3-RSR.