Force India's Sergio Perez ended qualifying in eighth position, a result which satisfies the Mexican and hopefully provides some opportunities in tomorrow's race.
Given how disrupted Force India's preparation had been leading up to qualifying, Perez's effort and the subsequent result is pretty much the maximum the team could have hoped for.
"I’m very pleased with the qualifying result today given where the pace of the car is at the moment," Perez said.
"It’s probably a bit better than I expected, but the team did a fantastic job getting the car in shape for qualifying considering the lack of track time we had yesterday.
"All of my laps were clean and tidy and I think we maximised the performance today.
"We were probably helped by the fact that we didn't have much running yesterday because the big quicker teams didn't have the time to exploit their full potential.
The prospect of a wet race could throw a bit of uncertainty into the mix, and Perez will be on the lookout to make the most of anything interesting that may come his way.
"It’s looking like we will have a wet race, which could generate some more opportunities because there will be a lot of unknowns about how the wet tyres will perform.
"It will be a big challenge but I'm up for it, and the team is ready for the fight and hopefully we can come away with some more points."
Gallery: All the pictures from Saturday's action in Shanghai
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
The opening day of running at the Las Vegas GP was a smooth but chilly…
Williams is continuing to fight uphill battles this weekend in Las Vegas as a knock-on…
It was a solid start to the Las Vegas weekend for Ferrari with Carlos Sainz…
Lando Norris didn’t hold back in his assessment of McLaren’s performance on the opening day…
Lewis Hamilton was particularly happy with his opening day of running at the Las Vegas…
Red Bull fears that its prospects for this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix - which…