Sergio Perez admits waiting to start the 2020 Formula 1 season is "painful" knowing the potential of his Racing Point car.

The Silverstone-based outfit surprised the paddock at pre-season testing in February by revealing a design that was dubbed a 'Pink Mercedes' due to its likeness to last year's W10.

Despite the comments by their rivals, however, it was clear the Racing Point was quick in Barcelona and most expected the team to lead the midfield at the opening race in Australia.

Of course, after what would have been the fourth race today (Sunday) in China, we still don't know exactly how good it is.

“The other day, I had a call with Otmar [Szafnauer, Racing Point CEO] and also with Tom [McCullough], our chief engineer, and I was telling them ‘you know, for the first time in our careers, we have a competitive car’," Perez revealed to Formula1.com.

Also Read:

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• Renault still 'wondering' about the legality of Racing Point's 'Pink Mercedes'
• Racing Point: Rivals upset because they haven't done a good job

“We obviously don't know how competitive it is, but we know it's quite encouraging.

“Going to Melbourne in that sense, [with] all the preparation we’d all done, knowing that we had a good car underneath us, [to not race] was very painful, very painful. But it’s a painful time for everybody. We just have to stay united.”

The Mexican then highlighted the performance of this year's cars in general, which will be the last of the current generation before new rules come into effect for 2022.

“We are driving the fastest cars in the history of Formula 1,” he declared. “You cannot imagine the speeds that we do in fast corners.

“It's nothing close to previous years. The qualifying laps are going to be amazing. We are going to be breaking all lap records this year with the generation of cars we have, they're simply the best cars.”