Carlos Sainz drew satisfaction from his eye-catching wet-weather pace on Friday after he marked his maiden track session at Suzuka by topping an F1 timesheet for the very first time.
Unlike fellow rookie team-mate Max Verstappen, who made his F1 practice bow here last year, Sainz had never driven around the famous figure-of-eight circuit ahead of Friday's practice sessions.
The rain that dogged the opening day's running meant it was the toughest of baptisms to one of F1's most challenging layouts for the 21-year-old Spaniard - however he belied that inexperience by topping Practice One.
Sainz's time of 1:49.434 on intermediate tyres was half a second quicker than his next closest challenger, Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat. It was a time that would have still placed him fifth-quickest in P2 despite track conditions having improved by the early stages of the afternoon.
"More than the result in P1, [it was satisfying] looking at the lap time I did and how wet it was and then how much drier it was in P2 when everyone set the lap time with new inters," Sainz said when asked about whether pacing an F1 session held particular personal satisfaction for him.
"So I was pretty pleased also knowing that [Sebastian] Vettel and Kvyat had also done laps with the inters in P1 and had tried to set a lap. I was happy with that. I couldn't ask for much more."
Having never been to Suzuka before, Sainz says he deliberately sought to build up his speed in the tricky conditions and avoid the pitfalls of aquaplaning off the circuit.
"Here the extra difficulty was I didn't know the track at all! My debut on this track was directly in the wet, which is not easy for sure. So I took it very easy at the beginning, built up the confidence and made sure I was confident towards the end of the session with no mistakes," he explained.
"It helped, definitely, and once I put the inter tyres on the straights you were aquaplaning everywhere, but then mid-corner you had much more grip. So you had to commit to the inter knowing that there was a big risk of aquaplaning off - which makes it even more of a challenge because it's P1 and you don't want to put the car in the wall on the middle of the straight!
"Although here there's not straights, it's all corners, but you should be flat out. So it was a challenging first session which I obviously was happy when it finished and I saw myself up there [on the timesheet]."
Saturday and Sunday's forecasts are for fairer weather, however, and Sainz is aware that he will be battling with a host of Suzuka veterans to make his way into the top 10 on the grid.
"The only thing I'm sure is that tomorrow everything will seem much, much faster and everything will come so much quicker!" he added.
"Also the steering wheel will become much harder because of the slick tyres, so it will be a big challenge for me tomorrow to learn a track like Suzuka. I'm not talking about Sochi - I'm talking about Suzuka in one hour [in the dry] and then going directly to qualy.
"I will be fighting for the top 10 with people who have been here for years and years in the dry. So it will be a big challenge and I expect a tough learning curve tomorrow."