Daniel Ricciardo says he is confident his Red Bull team can challenge Mercedes in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Mercedes topped the timesheets in both practice sessions on Friday, with pacesetter Lewis Hamilton over 0.5s clear of both Max Verstappen and Ricciardo in fourth and fifth respectively during FP2. Although Mercedes appears to be in control of proceedings at this stage of the weekend, Ricciardo believes Red Bull can put pressure on the Silver Arrows duo in both qualifying and the race.

"If we put it all together tomorrow we are more or less there," the Australian said. "Vettel put in a quick time. I think we will find that little tomorrow, and it will be a good fight for third place. Mercedes as expected are ahead. But I don't think they are miles ahead. Looking at today, maybe we could still race them on Sunday.

"On one lap we can still find a few tenths, maybe everyone else can as well, but I am confident that we can make a small step from where we were today. The long run today was good, and on the long run we can also find a little bit.

"The race sim looked promising this morning, and this afternoon we seemed to be competitive enough. We can still make the car better, so I am confident going into tomorrow we can be strong. But even more confident going into Sunday."

Nico Rosberg heads into the weekend with a 12-point championship lead, and knows he only has to finish in the top three to secure his maiden Formula One title, regardless of where teammate Hamilton comes.

When asked whether he believes Rosberg was taking it easy on Friday in order to save his engine, Ricciardo replied: "Yeah, it is a dangerous circuit around here, lots of walls and stuff! No, I don't see any reason to hold back in practice. If it is Monaco I understand maybe you want to be careful with your equipment.

"But here you can definitely push and go on the limit, so we will see tomorrow. Maybe he is holding back a bit, not showing Lewis too much, but it is going to be interesting. Everyone predicts Lewis to take the pole, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out tomorrow."