World champion Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in second practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix on Friday, while Daniel Ricciardo finished eighth in the second session.
The Australian crossed the line four places ahead of teammate Lando Norris, which was a reversal of their placings from the first practice session earlier in the day.
"I think it was a better day personally," Ricciardo said.
"For me, I just felt like I got on with it from the start of FP1 … Certainly, I felt like today I took a step forward in terms of just my confidence in the car and ability to hang it out a little bit more."
Ricciardo admitted his style of driving around corners has made it tough in the McLaren but he's becoming more accustomed to the car through work on the simulator.
"The car, at least the tendency, rewards a bit of a different technique and a bit of a different style and that's from turning, to the way you use the brake and then get back on throttle," he said.
"It's a little unique, so I've been working on that in the simulator and tried to put that into display today. I think that was coming and naturally just getting more confidence with the way the car slides.
"I think the general characteristics of the car are, let's say, what they are at the moment," he added. "At some corners, I can for sure use my style, but for the majority the best way to drive it is a different style.
"I'm trying to let the guys know where the weaknesses are and how I'd like to drive the car, so we're trying to bring some updates to address that. But until then, I'll just learn how to drive it how it is."
Hamilton clocked 1min 19.837sec in the Mercedes to edge out Red Bull's Max Verstappen on 1min 19.980sec with Valtteri Bottas, in the second Mercedes, in third on 1min 20.181sec.
Bottas had set the fastest time in the morning session with 1min 19.648sec.
Many teams were hit by tyre problems during the day with most cars struggling to warm up their rubbers during the hot lap. Lando Norris struggled also with tyre temperatures in the second session.
"There were a lot of people making mistakes, myself included, so it's not easy to put it all together," he said.
"You don't have like an obvious one lap where the tyres are good, they last two or three laps here. So yeah, it's different and it is tricky.
"The car balance also isn't maybe quite as good as the past few weekends. So we definitely have a bit of work to do to be confident of being in the top 10. And we're not confident of being inside the top 10, which is important to get into Q3 (Qualifying three).
"So it's a bit tougher than we expected and a bit tougher than we want. But, yeah, we have overnight to try and make some improvements for qualifying."
The afternoon session at Portimao was delayed by 10 minutes to fix a faulty manhole cover before Hamilton set the pace, topping practice for the first time this season.
Former champion Fernando Alonso, who stormed his Alpine (formerly Renault) into fifth was the story of the day, with teammate Esteban Ocon in sixth.
"It was a good practice day for me and the most comfortable I've had this season compared to Bahrain and Imola," Alonso said.
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