Ben Edwards: ‘I’m not counting Mercedes out just yet'

Episode 1 of Crash.net's new F1 podcast, featuring Ben Edwards, focuses on the hot topics from pre-season testing at Barcelona and Bahrain and looks ahead to the start of F1’s new era.

Lewis Larkam

15 Mar 2022

Ben Edwards: ‘I’m not counting Mercedes out just yet'

F1 commentator Ben Edwards believes Red Bull and Ferrari are in the best shape going into the 2022 season but is refusing to rule out reigning world champions Mercedes despite a difficult pre-season test in Bahrain.

“I thought Red Bull clearly did a very good job, with Max Verstappen’s fastest pace in Bahrain,” Edwards said on the first-ever Crash.net F1 podcast. “[They made] some changes on that last day that seemed to work extremely well with the car

“The smiles on their faces, it was the reaction on their faces that one could see in the garage that almost gave you the story that they are in good shape.

“Ferrari, clearly, very consistent both in Barcelona and in Bahrain, doing a very solid job and I do hope that they are up there.

“And then there’s the big question about Mercedes, and we’re all feeling a bit uncertain about that because they’ve thrown a completely different car at us at the second test.

"They’ve clearly had a few issues with it, a lot of porpoising, but we know how good that Mercedes team is and how quickly they can develop things. So I’m definitely not counting them out, not yet.”

Edwards was joined on Crash.net's F1 podcast by Crash.net's F1 Editor Lewis Larkam and Podcast host Harry Benjamin to discuss several topics including looking ahead to this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix and whether F1 could soon have an American driver on the grid.

You can download and listen to the first episode in full at the following links…