Formula One without noise is pointless
Fans dismayed by quiet new engines, saying roar is part of the experience
You know you’ve reached some form of ethical crossroads when you find yourself agreeing with Formula One supremo, Bernie Ecclestone. Ecclestone — and this is me actually being circumspect — is either corrupt or a manipulator of Machiavellian proportions, depending on your exact delineation of bribe or investment. Nonetheless, the man knows how to promote the sport of automobile racing and so, when he announces to one and all that he was “horrified” by the spectacle that was the recent Melbourne F1 race, the first round of the 2014 racing season, it bears lending an ear.
What has Ecclestone so bent out of shape is noise, or rather, the lack thereof.
“I was not horrified by the noise, I was horrified by the lack of it,” F1’s boss was quoted as telling Australian newspaper The Age. “These cars don’t sound like racing cars.”
Indeed, so effective are the turbochargers at muffling the verbose internal combustioning inside F1’s normally noisy motors (a result of this year’s engine rules changes) that some fans at the race reportedly could barely hear the cars at all.
This did not sit well with the race’s organizer, Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker, who told the paper, “You have to create demand, and part of that demand is people liking the noise of the race cars,” noting that the lack of audible excitement was “not what we paid for.”
It’s not the first time this year such a complaint has been filed against F1’s new 1.6-litre turbocharged engines. Indeed, Ecclestone raised the issue two months before the season officially started, only to be pilloried by some of the automakers, including none other than Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali, who didn’t seem to think that something like the lack of an evocative sound from his racers’ engine would deter fans.
“Personally, I don’t think this aspect will keep people away from the racetracks,” said the race team’s director. “We should be more con- cerned with the grand prix event as a whole.”
What a load of hogwash. For one thing, what, if not the sound of the engines racing by, is to separate the cars for the fans in the stands?
More importantly, doesn’t Domenicali realize that for the average fan — the ones way up there in the nosebleed sections — the sound emanating from unmuffled tailpipes is their major point of reference in judging who is going fast and who is just lolling about?
Indeed, for trackside watchers, the fury emanating from tailpipes is sometimes all you have to judge the relative speed of the racers, the cars whizzing by so fast that vis- ual acumen can’t pick up the minute differences in pace. Far from being a sideline, the sound of a flat-plane crank V8 or a high-revving V12 screaming may be the most important part of the racing spectacle.
For anyone — especially a director from Ferrari, the company that has probably benefited the most from mellifluous engines — to claim that the Sturm und Drang of high-speed internal combustion isn’t important just speaks to the disconnect between F1 management and the sport’s fan base.
Nor is it just on the track that sound matters as much as speed. It’s true, for instance, that, as sporting en- thusiasts, we worship at the altar of performance. Indeed, many articles bandy about horsepower figures and zeroto-100-kilometre-an-hour acceleration times like gospel from the mount. But, truth be told, I can’t tell the difference between a Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG’s 3.7-second run to 100 km/h and the Audi RS7’s 3.9-second sprint. I have to take their word for it.
But I can most assuredly distinguish their exhaust notes, the big Merc pretty much a NASCAR-gone-to-finishing school baritone while the RS7’s sharper, crisper multi-octave boom announces it as one of the most sophisticated engines ever to drive a street car.
Ditto for the choice between, say, supercars from Ferrari and McLaren. Drive a 458 and an MP4-12C backto-back and I can assure you that, if you do choose Maranello over Woking, the reason you do will be the warble that Ferrari’s 4.5-litre V8 makes as it taps its 9,000 rpm redline.
For those looking for a cheaper source of exhaust music, try spinning a highperformance BMW in-line six to redline or grunt a Subaru WRX STI out of a gravel hairpin.
With an ever-vigilant constabulary limiting opportun- ities to use the other aspects of automobile performance — top speed, maximum cornering, etc. — listening to the engine sing is often all the enjoyment one can get out of a hugely-horsepowered, multi-pistoned hotrod.
The red herring in Formula One’s new 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 engines is that the new formula supposedly provides relevance for the billions spent on F1 racing since more manufacturers opt for small-displacement turbo production engines to meet ever more stringent worldwide fuel consumption regulations.
Nonsense! While there may be some minute benefits in getting slightly more insight into the science of turbocharging, it can in no way justify the vast sums of money spent in F1 racing every year.
Compare that tiny potential for improvement to what might be gleaned if the rules simply stated that 100 kilograms of fuel — and its electrical, compressed hydrogen and CNG equivalents — were mandated for the entire race distance and let the best and brightest engineering minds on the planet determine what might be the fastest, and most efficient, solution.
I suspect F1 might then come close to justifying the enormous monies spent.