Daniel Ricciardo is looking to uphold the positive momentum he enjoyed on Renault's opening day of practice at the Russian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo's best effort in FP2 delivered the third fastest lap behind the dominant Mercedes squad, a time that was nevertheless over a full second slower than pacesetter Valtteri Bottas' best.
But the Aussie knows that his main competitors are those currently looking over his shoulder.
"We keep on setting the time sheets alight on Friday, so it’s nice to see us high up again today," Ricciardo said.
"It’s a circuit I’ve not had too much success or confidence on before, so it definitely gives me a boost.
"I learnt a lot and showed strong pace in every run. Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think it’ll be a lot closer especially between us and the teams that are about two to three tenths behind, so I think qualifying will be tightly contested.
"But I draw a lot of confidence from today and we’ll look to string it all together for the rest of the weekend."
Ricciardo's teammate Esteban Ocon also finished his day among the top ten, while Renault chief race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam aims to capitalize on the day's learnings.
"It was a good day here in Sochi," said Pilbeam. "The morning session was a bit disrupted with the red flag stoppage and a couple of yellow flags, but the afternoon session was clear, and we got through everything we had planned to do.
"Our pace looks okay on both short runs and long runs and we’ll remain realistic for tomorrow and Sunday.
"We’ll do our usual Friday evening homework and come back tomorrow looking to put both cars in a good position on the grid.
"We’ve tried a few things on set-up on both cars and we’ll aim to put together the best bits we’ve learnt today onto tomorrow’s set-up."
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