It is all relative to what you have grown accustomed to. Someone a bit older than you could argue that your 80s and 90s cars had nothing on the sound of a BRM H16 and that you'd never experience the joy they had from F1.
I won't get into which engine sounds better, as this is all very subjective. I have a pretty open mind about 2014 and I'll tell you what I am looking forward to:
- Hissing sounds from the turbine spinning up and the whole power unit sounding different to what one might expect. The rather sophisticated energy recovery systems would kick in at times when one wouldn't usually anticipate it, especialy when compared to a traditional turbo-charged engine.
- More failures as a result of new technology. Even if someone is in the lead with 20 more laps to go, there is a good chance something can still go wrong.
- Different looks of that cars. Love them or hate them, their noses in particular look different and I think it's great that we see different solutions that are even visible for the casual watcher.
- Tactical Energy management and smart driving. The deployment of the stored energy as well as fuel management will make 2014 an extremely tactical year. I do hope that we and the commentators will get all the information to follow what is going on in detail with the engine settings.
- Reshuffling of the grid. With all this new technology (and the current crisis at Renault), it is completely unknown who will come out on top.