Racing Point's Sergio Perez claims team-mate Lance Stroll's race pace is better than that of his previous team-mates at the Silverstone-based team.
Perez has been joined at Racing Point by Stroll, who previously raced for Williams, following the takeover of the team by the 20-year-old's billionaire father, Lawrence Stroll.
Stroll struggled at Williams – despite a strong showing in Azerbaijan where he finished on the podium in 2017 – contributing to the opinion that money, rather than talent, was the main factor in his rise to Formula 1, but Perez insists he has natural speed which came as no surprise.
"There is no surprise," said the Mexican ahead of this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix. "He has the speed, the talent. He works hard. I think he's going to be constantly scoring points, which is great for the team.
"It proves it’s so hard to judge someone [as] so much is related to the performance of the car in F1."
Perez also revealed that Stroll's race pace is closer to his own than his former team-mates Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon.
"In a way Esteban and Nico had quite a similar approach and they always seemed to struggle a lot with race pace but with Lance, his race pace is, from all the team-mates, the closest to mine.
"In qualifying he can deliver too. He's already, on Sundays, quite good. I was quite surprised because going for a long run I seemed to find it a bit easier with my previous team-mates, but it's not the case now. He has a good understanding.
"It's good, it's what you need to score points, especially with this tight midfield."
Stroll finished ninth in Melbourne to score two points, putting Racing Point seventh in the standings ahead of Toro Rosso and the points-less McLaren and Williams.
