After taking fourth place in the morning session, Orudzhev surpassing AVF's Tom Dillmann in the dying seconds of the afternoon with a lap of 1m40.675s, ending up 0.017s in the clear.

The morning's benchmark time of 1m40.760s was set by Matthieu Vaxiviere, the 2015 runner-up taking over from Aurelien Panis with less than 10 minutes left on the clock.

And with Vaxiviere, Panis and their compatriot Dillmann making up the top three as the only drivers to dip below 1m40s in the first session, Orudzhev was best of the rest in fourth place, at exactly 1m41s.

In fifth was Beitske Visser, who switched from Strakka for Teo Martin for the test. The Dutch racer had previously signed on to contest the season with Pons before the team pulled out of the category.

The top five in the afternoon featured the same names, albeit in a different order. Behind Orudzhev and Dillmann was morning pacesetter Vaxiviere, with Panis and Visser making up the top five.

15 cars took to the track during the day, the field made up of seven two-car outfits and the sole Durango entry of Giuseppe Cipriani.

Strakka, who had fielded Visser and Emil Bernstorff in Barcelona, sat out the test, as did fellow British team Comtec.

Day 1 results