By alley - Sep 15, 2016, 7:01 PM ET

WEC: Jarvis puts Audi on top in tight FP1

Oliver Jarvis claimed the top spot for Audi right at the end of opening free practice for this weekend's Austin round of the World Endurance Championship.

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 teammates 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

Pos	Class	Driver	Team	Car	Gap
1	LMP1	L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	1m48.453s
2	LMP1	R.Dumas, N.Jani, M.Lieb	Porsche Team	Porsche	0.047s
3	LMP1	M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	0.436s
4	LMP1	T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley	Porsche Team	Porsche	0.795s
5	LMP1	S.Sarrazin, M.Conway, K.Kobayashi	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota	0.908s
6	LMP1	A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota	1.256s
7	LMP1	M.Tuscher, D.Kraihamer, A.Imperatori	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion/AER	6.026s
8	LMP1	S.Trummer, O.Webb	ByKOLLES Racing Team	CLM/AER	7.664s
9	LMP2	R.Rusinov, R.Rast, A.Brundle	G-Drive Racing	ORECA/Nissan	8.547s
10	LMP2	D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung, N.Panciatici	Baxi DC Racing Alpine	Alpine/Nissan	9.160s
11	LMP2	M.Rao, R.Bradley, R.Merhi	Manor	ORECA/Nissan	9.194s
12	LMP2	G.Menezes, N.Lapierre, S.Richelmi	Signatech Alpine	Alpine/Nissan	9.546s
13	LMP2	R.Dalziel, L.Derani, C.Cumming	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier/Nissan	10.300s
14	LMP2	N.Leventis, L.Williamson, J.Kane	Strakka Racing	Gibson/Nissan	10.358s
15	LMP2	S.Sharp, E.Brown, J.van Overbeek	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier/Nissan	10.567s
16	LMP2	R.Gonzalez, B.Senna, F.Albuquerque	RGR Sport by Morand	Ligier/Nissan	11.442s
17	LMP2	V.Petrov, V.Shaytar, K.Ladygin	SMP Racing	BR Engineering/Nissan	11.498s
18	LMP2	N.Minassian, M.Mediani	SMP Racing	BR Engineering/Nissan	11.674s
19	GTE Pro	S.Mucke, O.Pla	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford	17.004s
20	GTE Pro	G.Bruni, J.Calado	AF Corse	Ferrari	17.107s
21	GTE Pro	D.Rigon, S.Bird	AF Corse	Ferrari	17.370s
22	GTE Pro	N.Thiim, M.Sorensen	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	18.181s
23	GTE Pro	R.Lietz, M.Christensen	Dempsey Racing - Proton	Porsche	18.446s
24	GTE Pro	M.Franchitti, A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford	18.771s
25	GTE Am	L.Viljoen, P.Ragues, R.Taylor	Larbre Competition	Chevrolet	18.959s
26	GTE Pro	D.Turner, F.Rees	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	19.065s
27	GTE Am	K.Al Qubaisi, D.H.Hansson, K.Estre	Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing	Porsche	19.390s
28	GTE Am	M.Wainwright, A.Carroll, B.Barker	Gulf Racing UK	Porsche	19.921s
29	GTE Am	F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas	AF Corse	Ferrari	20.183s
30	GTE Am	C.Ried, W.Henzler, J.Camathias	KCMG	Porsche	20.611s
31	GTE Am	P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	20.660s