The Kiwi, who moved from Jaguar customer team Envision to the full factory outfit in the off-season, jumped to the top of the timesheets with a 1m24.617s inside the final 20 minutes at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo on Friday.
His best effort left him less than half a tenth clear of Maximilian Guenther, who had hovered towards the top of the times for the majority of the afternoon aboard his Maserati MSG machine.
