Ricciardo struggled with comfort in his RB during the opening two practice sessions in Imola to end the day 11th-fastest, while team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was an impressive third.

“I think I was still trying to find a little bit of lap time around here,” he said following second practice.

“It took me a bit to get to grips with. A few corners I was struggling and then, as always, few things with set-up we’ll try to improve and obviously give me that feeling of comfort and confidence.

“Glad it’s a conventional weekend because I feel like another practice session tomorrow will be good just to make some set-up changes and try and improve a few areas.”

Ricciardo heads into the weekend off the back of a mixed event in Miami, where he starred in the Sprint before struggling for single-lap pace in qualifying for the race itself.

Encouragingly, the RB appears to be well-suited to the Imola circuit, suggesting a good performance will net a strong result.

“Obviously, I don’t know what everyone else is doing, but I didn’t really feel like I did a very great lap or whatever, and I think we were P11,” Ricciardo noted following Free Practice 2.

“Other weekends, we feel like we’ll do a great lap and it’s P11.

“Yuki did a great job today and P3, I think it was.

“It looks like we can definitely be a strong Q3 car, but who knows?

“I think we’ll look at a few little tweaks tonight and we’ll be good.”

Final practice in Imola begins at 12:30 local time (20:30) on Saturday, ahead of qualifying at 16:00 (midnight).