Jaime Alguersuari may have secured his F1 future - at least for now - with his eighth-placed finish in the European GP, one of his two home races.
The Toro Rosso driver started the 57-lap grand prix a disappointing P18 on the grid after failing to impress during Saturday's qualifying.
But, by the end of Sunday afternoon, the Spaniard was racing around in eighth place, lapping ahead of Force India's Adrian Sutil and Renault's Nick Heidfeld.
"I am very happy with this result, especially after I only qualified in eighteenth place. It definitely paid off to concentrate on race set-up," said the Toro Rosso driver.
"This was a fantastic race and I want to thank my mechanics who worked so hard after the problems we had with my car on Friday during Free Practice. So this result is a reward I am happy to give them.
"Even though I still struggle to get the best out of the tyres in qualifying, I feel I now have a much better understanding of how to use them in the race and that's definitely the best way round as the points are only given out after the race!
"We were able to run at a consistent pace all afternoon, which was the key to this result and it's the first time this season that I have had this feeling from the car and I am happy about that.
"Apart from working well with the tyres, I think the updates the team brought here were also a contributing factor, as they worked well and that partly explains why my pace was really good."
And the Spaniard's performance around the streets of Valencia may have secured his future with Toro Rosso test driver Daniel Ricciardo waiting in the wings for either Alguersuari or Sebastien Buemi to fail.
Asked about his future by the BBC, Alguersuari said: "I'm here because I enjoy Formula 1. I think I am doing a good job, I'm learning a lot, and I think my best is still to come.
"I don't really care if my future is on the line - I do my very best job race after race and I think we can score points at Silverstone in two weeks.
"Problems are always in life and you always need to push to recover those problems. I think we're doing a good job and recovering pace."
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