The end of the first day of on-track action at Fuji Speedway for this weekend's Six Hours of Fuji saw one of Porsche Team's 919 Hybrids sit atop the combined timesheets after Free Practices 1 and 2.

The No. 17 Porsche 919 Hybrid turned the fastest lap overall on the opening day of the weekend of the Japanese round, with Brendon Hartley lapping the 2.835-mile Fuji Speedway in 1:24.460.

Hartley's lap narrowly topped Andre Lotterer's Free Practice 1 pace-setting lap of 1:24.497 in the No. 7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Audi Sport Team Joest to put the Porsche on top overall for the day, but Hartley's lap would be the only one to beat the German driver's time, placing the No. 7 Audi second-quickest overall for the day.

The second 919 Hybrid was once again third quickest behind this pair with Neel Jani setting a lap four-tenths behind the pace-setting lap of its sister No. 17 car. The second Audi followed this second Porsche; the No. 8 R18 e-tron quattro was fourth overall for Friday.

The pair of TS040 Hybrids of Toyota Racing, the local favorites for this Japanese round, were considerably off the pace, finishing fifth- and sixth-quickest at over 1.5 seconds off the pace of the No. 17 Porsche.

L​eading the day in the LMP2 category was the No. 26 Ligier JS P2 Nissan-powered entry of G-Drive Racing, at the hands of Sam Bird, who turned a best lap of 1:32.131 in Free Practice 2. This time was six-tenths quicker than the lap set in Free Practice 1 by Nelson Panciatici in the No. 36 A450b Nissan of Signatech Alpine.

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

Third-quickest was the second G-Drive Ligier JS P2, the No. 28, just ahead of the No. 47 championship points-leading Oreca 05 Nissan of KCMG, driven by Matthew Howsen, Richard Bradley, and Nick Tandy who will return to the car after his historic overall win at the TUDOR Championship's Petit Le Mans season finale in a Porsche GTLM car.

Fastest overall on the opening day of the weekend in the flagship LMGTE category, GTE-Pro, was the No. 51 Ferrari F458 Italia of AF Corse. Toni Vilander turned a 1:39.922 to earn the top spot in the class for the day over Fred Makowieci's class-leading time from the morning session in the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR of Porsche Team Manthey.

The French-based GTE-Am class, Larbre Competition, put its No. 50 Corvette C7.R on top in the class overall for the day after Paolo Ruberti's lap of 1:40.659 from Free Practice 1 would not be topped in the second and final session of the day. This is perhaps due to the 20 kg weight break issued to the Corvette in the pre-Fuji Balance of Performance adjustments.

Next up for the FIA World Endurance Championship for the Japanese round is Free Practice 3 at 9:50 am track local time (Friday, 8:50 pm ET).

Click here for the full weekend schedule in Eastern time to use as a reference throughout the weekend and for the pre-race notebook to get you up to speed ahead of the green flag.


Follow @VAVELSportsCar on Twitter for comprehensive coverage throughout the FIA WEC weekend at Fuji Speedway including news, session recaps and live tweeting.

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About the author
Aaron Durant
Eighteen-year-old aspiring motorsports journalist. I lead The Apex as its editor-in-chief. Read my work at TheApex.racing.