Alonso drives Renault R25 at Yas Marina Circuit

[jjn9128]

Or is it that f1 really is missing something?

YES!! Yes it is.

What is it though? Small light cars which change direction quickly? Just the engine noise?? A spirit of competition and generally less over-professional atmosphere that came with genuine privateers?

[JordanMugen]

Or is it that f1 really is missing something?

YES!! Yes it is.

Small light cars which change direction quickly? Just the engine noise?? A spirit of competition and generally less over-professional atmosphere that came with genuine privateers?

Yes to the points made above.

A wailing engine sure is some lovely escapism and very pleasant sounding indeed. During a historic event, the Ferrari 412 T1 was sadly running at reduced revs and was rather quiet, however the Ferrari FXX demonstration had everyone at the fences and sounded lovely.

Yet nowadays, a wailing naturally aspirated engine is considered glorifying wasteful consumption -- which unnecessary polluting demonstration laps are themselves guilty of!

[PlatinumZealot]

That banshee engine sound is so glorious. It never gets old.
With carbon neutral fuels i hope they make a return.

[V12-POWER]

I think that says a lot about what I'm talking about - even drivers are excited by the spectacle of those cars. They have the fastest cars ever but they get giddy when a v10 goes by.

Have you seen the several video's of Hamilton (and Button) drooling over a V6 turbo back when they were racing high revving V8's?

Exactly that!

People just forget when in 2004 we were all looking back at 80s turbos or the early 90s V12s and we were all saying "wow these cars were so beautiful and powerful"!

I remember back in 2007-2008 i thought the cars looked so ugly compared to 1990-1994 cars! I thought (and I still think) that the early 90s cars were the most iconic with the sparks flying behind the front wheels! Now though I look back at the 2008 Mclaren and think "wow...what a work of art that was!"

It all has to do with nostalgia...people always tend to think that the past was always better than the present! V10s were beautiful until 2005 but not in 2020 just like V12s were beautiful in the early 90s but not in 2005!

I'm sure in 10 years time we will all look back at the 2020 Mercedes and we'll say "wow...what a work of art that was!! The fastest car in history..."

I doubt it’s all nostalgia though. I can re-watch 2000-2005 races and not get bored, it’s not the same excitement as when I was a kid, but just the race start when these cars begin to scream just never fails to get me fired up, you just feel the energy, it’s really hard to describe

The hybrid engine is just soulless, and it’s not like they share anything with 1980 turbo engines aside from a turbo and 6 cylinders

Back then the engines were hard to predict and this created a lot of “oh sht” moments, most of the pole laps weren’t even tidy at all, modern cars just drive on rails

And even if it is true that a lot of fans asked for turbo engines, with this they also meant the crazy un-drivability they had, because well it is indeed quite a sight.

[tonmeister]

I think, in general, most people grossly underestimate or take for granted the importance of sound or music. Take a movie, watch it without proper effects or soundtrack. It's a whole different experience. I have been able to attend every single winter test in Montmelo since 2004. I'm a classical musician and I do no take sound for granted. I miss greatly the visceral impact of the downshifts on your chest with the V10s and to a lesser extend the V8s, the piercing high pitch of a high revving aspirated engine. Watching test with the new engines is exciting but nowhere near the sense of anticipation of getting near the circuit and feel the monsters roar. It's really not nostalgia, for me it's a fact...

[strad]

Take a movie, watch it without proper effects or soundtrack. It's a whole different experience.

To right. I have watched a special on the effect on people watching the same scenes but with different music/sound effects.
Any good commercial uses music and sound to help manipulate us as well as the visuals.

[strad]

What is it though? Small light cars which change direction quickly? Just the engine noise?? A spirit of competition and generally less over-professional atmosphere that came with genuine privateers?

All of that jjn. All of it.

[Andres125sx]

I think, in general, most people grossly underestimate or take for granted the importance of sound or music. Take a movie, watch it without proper effects or soundtrack. It's a whole different experience. I have been able to attend every single winter test in Montmelo since 2004. I'm a classical musician and I do no take sound for granted. I miss greatly the visceral impact of the downshifts on your chest with the V10s and to a lesser extend the V8s, the piercing high pitch of a high revving aspirated engine. Watching test with the new engines is exciting but nowhere near the sense of anticipation of getting near the circuit and feel the monsters roar. It's really not nostalgia, for me it's a fact...

And as a musician, you didn´t care about the potential hearing damage that V10 roar could cause to you?

I loved V10 sound, but we can´t prioritize that over our health. V10 sound was several orders of magnitude over all reasonable, healthy and legal limits


I will never understand that obsession about that noise, and I´ll repeat I loved it too, but if people consider noise as an important factor for a racing engine, we have very very different concepts about what a racing engine should be or provide

[jjn9128]

And as a musician, you didn´t care about the potential hearing damage that V10 roar could cause to you?

I loved V10 sound, but we can´t prioritize that over our health. V10 sound was several orders of magnitude over all reasonable, healthy and legal limits


I will never understand that obsession about that noise, and I´ll repeat I loved it too, but if people consider noise as an important factor for a racing engine, we have very very different concepts about what a racing engine should be or provide

As someone with tinnitus I can only agree with this point... however, there was something special about going to testing and hearing a V10 scream all the way from Silverstone village. The Mercedes V10 in particular around 1998/99 was just so different to everything else. If you wear decent earplugs you get SPL drop without frequency attenuation.

It has to be said though, the V6s are just soulless - at least in the broadcast... perhaps at the track they sound more characterful, in which case it's a failing by FOM to not capture that for the audience.

[DChemTech]

And as a musician, you didn´t care about the potential hearing damage that V10 roar could cause to you?

I loved V10 sound, but we can´t prioritize that over our health. V10 sound was several orders of magnitude over all reasonable, healthy and legal limits


I will never understand that obsession about that noise, and I´ll repeat I loved it too, but if people consider noise as an important factor for a racing engine, we have very very different concepts about what a racing engine should be or provide

As someone with tinnitus I can only agree with this point... however, there was something special about going to testing and hearing a V10 scream all the way from Silverstone village. The Mercedes V10 in particular around 1998/99 was just so different to everything else. If you wear decent earplugs you get SPL drop without frequency attenuation.

It has to be said though, the V6s are just soulless - at least in the broadcast... perhaps at the track they sound more characterful, in which case it's a failing by FOM to not capture that for the audience.

On track at Spa I didn't wear earplugs for F1; that wasn't an option for F2/F3

[jjn9128]

On track at Spa I didn't wear earplugs for F1; that wasn't an option for F2/F3

Volume =/= character. The turbo popping and whirring is more prominent on fan videos than the broadcast - is that at least interesting? I liked going to the WEC round at Silverstone because there was so much diversity in engine notes between NA, turbo charged, v8, v6, diesel (Audi and Peugeot at the time).

[V12-POWER]

I think, in general, most people grossly underestimate or take for granted the importance of sound or music. Take a movie, watch it without proper effects or soundtrack. It's a whole different experience. I have been able to attend every single winter test in Montmelo since 2004. I'm a classical musician and I do no take sound for granted. I miss greatly the visceral impact of the downshifts on your chest with the V10s and to a lesser extend the V8s, the piercing high pitch of a high revving aspirated engine. Watching test with the new engines is exciting but nowhere near the sense of anticipation of getting near the circuit and feel the monsters roar. It's really not nostalgia, for me it's a fact...

And as a musician, you didn´t care about the potential hearing damage that V10 roar could cause to you?

I loved V10 sound, but we can´t prioritize that over our health. V10 sound was several orders of magnitude over all reasonable, healthy and legal limits


I will never understand that obsession about that noise, and I´ll repeat I loved it too, but if people consider noise as an important factor for a racing engine, we have very very different concepts about what a racing engine should be or provide

Since when was F1 about being healthy? Cmon lol

There’s something called earbuds. Racing cars don’t cater to road limits so it doesn’t matter how loud they are or how many dBs above legal limits they are

Top fuel dragsters can literally rupture your eardrums. To this day I still see full grandstands and people gathering around while it’s burning nitromethane, do you really think “health” is a valid point for not bringing back the V10 engines?

Nobody has that many health concerns buddy, those who do, can just watch Formula E with all the “excitmement” it has

[tonmeister]

I think, in general, most people grossly underestimate or take for granted the importance of sound or music. Take a movie, watch it without proper effects or soundtrack. It's a whole different experience. I have been able to attend every single winter test in Montmelo since 2004. I'm a classical musician and I do no take sound for granted. I miss greatly the visceral impact of the downshifts on your chest with the V10s and to a lesser extend the V8s, the piercing high pitch of a high revving aspirated engine. Watching test with the new engines is exciting but nowhere near the sense of anticipation of getting near the circuit and feel the monsters roar. It's really not nostalgia, for me it's a fact...

And as a musician, you didn´t care about the potential hearing damage that V10 roar could cause to you?

I loved V10 sound, but we can´t prioritize that over our health. V10 sound was several orders of magnitude over all reasonable, healthy and legal limits


I will never understand that obsession about that noise, and I´ll repeat I loved it too, but if people consider noise as an important factor for a racing engine, we have very very different concepts about what a racing engine should be or provide

Dear Andrés,

Of course I worry about my ears. I have earplugs designed to equally attenuate all frequencies. Works like a charm in orchestra, teaching and casually also during those F1 V10/V8 tests But the cheap foam kind also worked well, readily available for everyone.

You can argue that what's the point of V10 or V8 if you have to wear earplugs, sure. As I said, the feeling of getting your body shaken and rattled was incredible. And, as you probably have been aware from Alonso's R25 laps, that sound on TV also raises quite a bit of passion on fans. And passion for the sport should be present.

I'm all for technical development and road relevance, but maybe on a parallel championship? I don't know.

Cheers

[RedNEO]

There has to be a way F1’s biggest brains can bring back the V10’s under bio/synthetic eco friendly fuels for 2025. If they can build these complicated hybrids this should be a walk in the park. No excuses.

[aral]

I have removed a number of posts that were wildly off topic. These were about EVs, bio fur=els etc and had zero reference to the thread topic. Whilst in its own right the posts did provide a talking point, but please open up a thread about this and leave this particular thread to the stated topic.