Australian GP: Kamui Kobayashi says Q2 a tribute to Caterham effort

The team endured a dismal Friday, with Kobayashi and team-mate Marcus Ericsson completing just three laps between them.

But Kobayashi, who suffered a fuel system problem on day one, reached the second stage of qualifying on his F1 comeback thanks to the work done during the 19 laps he managed in Saturday's one-hour free practice session.

"After a very difficult Friday, to come back on Saturday into Q2 is not too bad," said Kobayashi when asked by AUTOSPORT about the performance.

"The mechanics have been working very hard and it's a good achievement to be here.

"But tomorrow is the most important, how much mileage we can get, and success in the race."

Although Caterham endured problems during practice, Kobayashi believes that he heads into the race with the possibility of making the finish.

Caterham was comfortably the Renault-powered team that completed the most mileage during testing, meaning that reaching the chequered flag is a realistic objective.

"The most important thing is to finish the race so we will see what we can do and what we are missing," said Kobayashi.

"At the moment, we have no idea as it is only the first race.

"But it [Sunday's result] is not the big part, which is to get more prepared for development for the car to get success in the car.

"At the moment, there is too much mystery, so we don't know how much potential we have in the car.

"That's what we are here to do. If we get more mileage, we can get more data."

Kobayashi's team-mate, Marcus Ericsson, also performed well in qualifying considering his lack of running ahead of his debut F1 qualifying session and will start 19th.