Daniel Ricciardo is confident of beating Ferrari at this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, but admits Mercedes is out of reach after Friday practice.
Ricciardo ended second practice 1.090s off the pace set by Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas, and just over 0.7s off Kimi Raikkonen in third. Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen fared much better and got within a couple of tenths of the Ferraris leaving Ricciardo confident of being the second best team this weekend.
"Mercedes were rapid today, and normally they are quicker in qualifying so we will let them do their thing at the moment," Ricciardo said. "But I think on one-lap pace we can get Ferrari and that will translate to higher fuel running. I know the feeling with the car is not where it can be, so for sure there is laptime on the table.
"We can definitely improve from where we are. I think we have learned a lot today. In the end we didn't get the right balance or feeling, so we will make some changes tonight and have a better car tomorrow."
The Australian was half a second shy of Verstappen in FP2 and admits he has work to do in the high-speed corners over one lap citing the Maggots and Becketts section in the middle sector as the key area of improvement for him.
"Yeah, we lost a bit, the first sector as well we are losing out, but I nearly spun on the first run on the super softs in Maggots/Becketts," Ricciardo added. "And then the second lap you lose the peak of the tire, so the one lap pace can certainly be better, but overall balance we can improve. We will close the gap."