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Mercedes may have the answer for Formula One fans longing for more engine noise in the new V6 era and they are ready to sound off about it.
The season’s dominant team, runaway winners of all five races so far, will try a new ‘megaphone’ type exhaust at a test in Barcelona this week as the sport seeks a solution to a problem of its own making.
“I’m sure everybody is looking forward to hearing what the ‘megaphone’ is going to be like,” Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said at the Spanish Grand Prix won by Lewis Hamilton – his fourth successive victory – on Sunday.
“We’re pretty clear – if the fans want to have more noise, and if it’s making the car not only sound better but it’s perceived to be in a better and more attractive way, then we’ll go for it.”
The sound of the new V6 turbo hybrid engines, which have replaced the screaming old V8s this year, provided an immediate controversy when the season started in Australia in March and has divided the paddock.
Some of the race promoters, who flew in from around the world to meet in Barcelona on Saturday, have called for more noise and fear ticket sales could fall off if fans are alienated by the lack of decibels.
While Formula One’s 83-year-old commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone agrees with them, the quieter turbos also have their supporters in the paddock –particularly among the technical boffins.
They argue that increasing the noise goes against the greener spirit of the regulation change which is to reduce wasted energy from the exhaust and brakes and harness it to make the cars go faster.
“Some of what we are experiencing with respect to the noise is that it (the new power unit) does what it says on the tin: It uses less energy, and it does so more efficiently so there’s less falling out of the back as noise,” said Renault F1 deputy managing director Rob White.
“I don’t sign up to the opinion that they sound horrible. I feel there is a positive message that has kind of got drowned out,” he added.
The old V8s had twin exhausts whereas the new V6 power unit has a sole tailpipe whose dimensions are the subject of detailed regulations.
Any change will have to be signed off by all teams before it can be implemented.
Mercedes’ Wolff, who sees the new power units and their cutting-edge technology as the way forward, suggested the fans might ultimately have to change their mindset and move with the times even if that meant other series such as GP2 or GP3 being louder. “It’s an interesting moment in time for Formula One,” mused the Austrian. “Traditionally you would have said that Formula One needs to be loud to be spectacular. Maybe now that’s changing.”
