Daniel Ricciardo was pleasantly surprised by Red Bull's pace during second practice for the Russian Grand Prix on Friday after finishing the session fꦬourth-fastest, beating both Ferrari Formula 1 drivers.

Ricciardo recovered from missing the second half of FP1 due to a precautionary check on his Red Bull car to finish just four-tenths of a secꦇond behind pace-setter Lewis Hamilton on Friday afternoon.

While Ricciardo was cautious to re꧙ad too much into the pace shown by rivals Mercedes and Ferrari at the Sochi Autodrom, the ♛Australian was happy with his efforts on Friday afternoon.

"It depends if that’⛄s th🍎e real pace. If this was qualifying, we aren’t probably going to do qualifying, but if it was, I think it would be a bit of a surprise, a pleasant one," Ricciardo said.

"The car felt good. I enjoyed driving today, the circuit was fun and I think with the Hypersoft, when you got grip, it’s a pretty good feeling. A lot of the flat corner o🤪n the this track, because you don’t have any banking to give you that extra grip, coming here with the hyper gives that feeling so it’♔s nice. Good fun."

Ricciardo is set to start the race from towards the back of the grid on Sunday as a result of a penalty for a power𒐪 unit change, but he is relishing an exciting race after getting a feel for runni꧋ng in traffic through FP2.

"We got bit of traffic in the long runs, so 🔯we had a bit of a feeling what it’s going tಌo be like in the race," Ricciardo said.

"It’s not ꦐthe easiest track to overtake but we eventually g𝕴ot it done, so I think the race should be fun.

"I am happy to see there’s some tyre deg today. If it’s♐ just an easy one-stop then it’s a bit pꦚredictable, so I am hoping [it will] maybe be a two-stop, as I think that’ll make it more exciting."

Ricciardo's teammate, Max Verstappen, was less enthusiastic about Red Bull's pace compared to that of Mercedes and Ferrari, saying the team would not be able to compete com✃e qualifying on Saturday.

"I think the car worked well but we know🎉 in qualifying, anyway, you don’t have a chance when they turn up their engines," Verstappen said.

"It’s good that we at least are in the mix tod🌠ay. If we were already half a second behind, then we would definitely have a lot more work to do but so far we can’t really complain."