That's your opinion, and that's fair enough.

But there's a growing list of quite influential people who don't agree.

Race promoters are worried that the lack of noise will tip people away from attending the races.

The only thing I was pointing out was that cutting the number of cylinders does not automatically lead to drastically reduced sound quality.

I would like to invite Mr. Noble, Mr. Rencken and every other 'expert' who thinks that V6 turbos have to sound like shite to watch a small race around an airport in Florida this Sunday.

Agreed, I always value your's and enjoy a good discussion with you even if we don't always agree,



There's an equally long list and growing list of influential people who are saying the opposite.



Race promoters or Ron Walker? Hint, it's the latter... who should be grateful of the lack of noise because now the Melbourne locals who opposed the Aussie GP going from day to a night race has a noise concern to complain about.

Walker should also be thankful that a huge crowd turned up on Sunday because of a local boy doing great on his first outing for Red Bull. So much for the engines keeping people from attending, as it seems a local hero qualifying on the front row then driving a great race to finish second is good for ticket sales. And to hear the crowd cheering when he got provisional pole and finished the race was incredible. Oh, that's atmosphere by the way Ron.

Instead of bitching about the state of things Ron (and Bernie for that matter) should be trying to sell their product.



True, I very much agree. But the Indycar's aren't using certain hybrid technologies coupled with the turbo engines which consume the noise. But the cars are still much quieter than you think.

It's not so much the noise (the new F1 engines are only about 10dB lower, or so I read), it's the quality of the sound. The F1 engines sound very reedy, very thin, compared to the Indycar engines. If that is all because of the energy recovery processes, then there's not much that could be done, but if small changes can be made to make the engines sound better, at the expense of nothing else, looks or performance in particular, they should be pursued.

They are career motorsports journalists who have been around long enough to have heard plenty of different engines - with their own ears, mind - and your argument is basically to put tabloid quotes around expert and call them wrong because your opinion differs? Good logic.

The common theme seems to be that people who remember the turbo cars of the 80s, or have seen the new cars in person, don't actually have a problem with them. What strikes me as odd is that most of the people gnashing their teeth about it are comparing them to the V8s, which were around for all of eight years and really didn't sound as good as their predecessors!

Their arguments are no better than strawmen. They seek to paint everyone against the new engines as reactionaries clinging to noises of a bygone age and refusing to let go, and that we should just accept what is as it is given, with no attempt to improve.

That's pretty poor argumentative skills from people who are getting paid to do this sort of thing.

To be fair, the vast majority of people who are complaining *are* just looking through rose-tinted glasses. Look at this thread, for example, and see how many people are arguing from any angle other than "but it sounded better when we had x engine". You have a point with the Indycar comparison, but even then it's not a direct one due to the relatively older tech involved.

I don't generally enjoy Rencken's articles, but Noble has at least touched upon the responsibility of the FIA to look into improvements. I think we can all agree that this is something that should happen if that many people are unhappy.

If their entire opinion base is comprised of angry people on internet forums, I think their conclusions may be a little lopsided.

I shudder at the thought of what we'd have if forums were used to decide regulations :P