Caterham driver Vitaly Petrov says he's thrilled with 19th place in qualifying for the Korean Grand Prix.
The Russian out-qualified his teammate Heikki Kovalainen Saturday and his team's cars outperformed the back-marking HRTs by over a second.
"My last lap was really good, probably as quick as we could go around here," said Petrov, who is trying to find a backer to continue in the sport next year.
"I've had a couple of problems on the car that has cost me track time this weekend but the team have worked really hard to keep us moving so thanks to them for helping me get the most out of it in all three practice sessions and in quali today," he told his team's website.
"We haven't stopped pushing and the aim now is to have a clean start tomorrow and try and carry over this sort of performance into Sunday's race."
Earlier this week, the 28-year-old said he was in the perfect position to benefit from crashes on the circuit.
“In the race itself there's a strong chance of safety cars during the race, both races so far have seen safety cars, so we need to be prepared for that,” Petrov said on the Caterham website.
The Russian knows plenty about collisions in Korea, having failed to finish both previous races at the Yeongnam circuit after accidents.
Petrov’s best finish of the season came with 13th in Valencia in June when numerous crashes played their part in lifting his normally uncompetitive Caterham up the time charts.
Petrov was handed a five-place grid penalty after last year’s Korean Grand Prix when stewards ruled his race-ending shunt into the rear of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes had been avoidable.