After Haas, Force India and Toro Rosso have unveiled their cars, the 2018 Formula 1 pre-season has officially started at 9:10 local time. Valtteri Bottas set the pace since the beginning and as he quickly moved up to the lead.
With a little bit more that half an hour into the session, the first red flag of the week was shown. Fernando Alonso had gone into the gravel trap after losing a tyre. The Spanish driver only could return to the track during the last 10 minutes of the session.
When the session was re-started, Brendon Hartley was one of the most active drivers on track, which was very important since the Faenza-based team has just switched to Honda engines.
Another active driver was Nico Hülkenberg, who became the session leader at 11:00 and was the driver with more laps done. Only the German driver and Bottas had improved to 1:21.
A few minutes after 11:30, Nikita Mazepin lost control of his Force India and ended up on the gravel trap in turn 4. The session was stopped for another fifteen minutes. When the track re-opened, drivers such as Bottas, Hülkenberg or Marcus Ericsson went out to keep adding laps, but Kimi Räikkönen also went on track and started to set very quick laps, moving up to the lead and being the only one to improve to 1:20.
With 10 minutes to go, drivers like Alonso or Romain Grosjean returned to track after long time stopped. With only four minutes until the end, Ricciardo improved to first place.
Everything ended like that and Ricciardo took the best time of the first official season of the year. Bottas has finished second and Räikkönen third. Hülkenberg has been, with 71 laps, the busiest driver; followed by Hartley with 70.
Final results:
| Pos. | Nº. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
| 1 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 1:20.179 | 59 |
| 2 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:20.349 | 56 |
| 3 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 1:20.506 | 58 |
| 4 | 27 | Nico Hülkenberg | Renault | 1:20.547 | 71 |
| 5 | 28 | Brendon Hartley | Toro Rosso | 1:22.371 | 70 |
| 6 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Williams | 1:22.452 | 46 |
| 7 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 1:23.092 | 32 |
| 8 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 1:24.202 | 10 |
| 9 | 9 | Marcus Ericsson | Alfa Romeo Sauber | 1:25.417 | 39 |
| 10 | 34 | Nikita Mazepin | Force India | 1:25.628 | 22 |