Racing Point hoped it would be good, but deep down it probably never expected its 'Pink Mercedes' to be this good.
Everyone had come into this year expecting Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull to be mixing it up at the front and maintaining their membership of F1's previously exclusive Class A group. At best, it was thought that a team like Racing Point or McLaren might just be able to bridge the gulf that had emerged in recent years between the top three and the chasing pack.
But no one could have predicted just how fast the RP20 was going to be. And certainly not that we were going to have weekends when it was quite clearly the second fastest car.