Ricciardo ended the second hour of practice on 16th and 1.5 seconds off the outright pace set by Charles Leclerc.
It was a net loss of four-tenths from Free Practice 1, where he’d been 10th quickest and only 1.1s adrift of the top of the timesheets.
“I think FP1 actually went pretty well,” Ricciardo said.
“I feel like I got into the flow of it relatively well and its feeling good.
“Then we made some changes for FP2 and, yeah, didn’t quite work out for us.
“Ideally a change is for the best, but we didn’t really feel like the conclusion of this one was positive.
“We’ll go back tomorrow and try and tweak a few other things, so from that point of view, I wish we would have found a little more.
“Saying that, we know what worked this morning, so try and just get a little bit more out of that and maybe not get too greedy with set-ups.”
The Baku circuit was especially dusty, with plumes of dirt kicked up by cars as they lapped the 6.003-kilometre venue.
Times fell by two seconds across the day’s two sessions, Verstappen’s 1:45.546s lap from Free Practice 1 proving more than three seconds slower than his time in the same session a year ago.
“It’s very slippery here. I was hearing that they didn’t pressure wash the circuit or something, and basically clean it like they normally would,” Ricciardo explained.
“So it started off really slippery and dirty, and trying to address some of that mid-corner is really weak, traction is poor, so overall level of grip is low.”
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While that grip did see times more than two seconds faster in Free Practice 2, grip remained at a premium.
Ricciardo’s set-up misstep complicated things for the Australian in the latter session.
The Australian is also sampling a new floor this weekend, first used by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda at the Italian Grand Prix.
There, Tsunoda was critical of the upgrade, suggesting it did not deliver what the team had hoped.
However, according to sporting director Alan Permane, that is likely a result of rushing its arrival, though the squad conducted further testing in Baku with Ricciardo using the floor in Free Practice 1, and Tsunoda the second session.
Permane added that the new floor is a development of that used in Miami, and not an evolution of the troublesome floor introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix.
“So Daniel will start with it here, and the plan is to put it on Yuki’s cars for FP2,” Permane said.
“So it gives us another opportunity to compare it across cars in FP1, and then across sessions on the same car in FP2.
“We are fully expecting to have both cars on it by certainly FP2, and then carry them both through to P3 and qualifying.
“We understand it a bit more now,” he added.
“In hindsight, and it’s so easy to say, this floor was destined for here.
“The factory did a wonderful job of getting us one floor early for Monza, and we weren’t quite ready to deal with it in terms of mechanical set-up.”
The team also has a circuit-specific front wing for this weekend’s race.
Ricciardo heads into Saturday with a final hour to remedy the shortcomings of his set-up ahead of qualifying.
“It’s tough. This morning we were there, kind of front of the midfield, and this afternoon we weren’t,” Ricciardo said.
“We know, if we get it right, we can be there.
“This circuit is one of those where, if you put the lap together, like any street circuit, if you can close your eyes and hold on, you can go pretty well.
“I think if we go back on FP1 set-up an tweak a few little things, I think we can still be fighting towards the front of the midfield.”
A final hour of practice remains, beginning at 18:30 AEST tonight.
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