MONTMELO, Spain -- Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo topped the opening day of Formula One testing as the 2018 pre-season got underway at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Ricciardo's lap -- a 1:20.179 -- was 1.6s faster than the best time on the first day of testing last year and put the Red Bull 0.170s clear of Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes in second place. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time -- 0.327s off Ricciardo -- ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who showed promising pace in the Renault just 0.041s off Raikkonen's best effort despite using the harder medium compound compared to the Ferrari's soft.