Jani, Porsche Quickest on Thursday at COTA

Photo: Porsche

Porsche ended the opening day of track activity for the Six Hours of Circuit of The Americas on top, with Neel Jani leading the way in Free Practice 2 for Saturday’s FIA World Endurance Championship round.

The reigning World Champion reeled off a 1:45.860 in the afternoon session to edge out the sister, championship-leading No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley by 0.541 seconds.

The pair of Toyota TS050 Hybrids were again third and fourth, with the No. 7 car nearly one-second off the pace from the leading Porsche, which made a two-plus second improvement from the opening session.

Times across all four classes were quicker than the 90-minute FP1, which began at noon.

Vaillante Rebellion paced LMP2, thanks to a 1:54.031 lap time from Bruno Senna in the No. 31 Oreca 07 Gibson.

The Anglo-Swiss squad were 1-2 in the session, ahead of the FP1 pace-setting No. 26 G-Drive Racing Oreca in third.

Aston Martin Racing, meanwhile, topped both GTE-Pro and GTE-Am, with Nicki Thiim and Pedro Lamy setting the quick times in the Nos. 95 and 98 Aston Martin Vantage GTEs, respectively.

A final 60-minute practice session is set for 10 a.m. CT on Friday, followed by qualifying in the afternoon.

RESULTS: Free Practice 2

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John