The New Sound Of F1

"Gabor Vajda (@Gabor_V)" (gaborvajda) 03/15/2014 at 08:46 • Filed to: f1, sound, turbo, v6, v12, v8, formula 1

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There has been a constant hissing and moaning about the forced retirement of the naturally aspirated engines in F1 (see also: "Would somebody think of the old ones??!!", also: "BRINGZ BAKK THE VEEEAAAIIGHT!!") let me address the problem by starting with this clip:

Now that we established that the V8s of the past sounded lame compared to the beautiful tone of this V12, we can take a closer look at what has become better with the V6-T engines.

As a tone, the new sound of F1 has become somewhat restrained and low-key. You may not like it, but it is what it is and will stay for probably about a decade or so, so you'll have enough time to get used to it.

Watching FP2 and Qualifying on TV I noticed a few things:

The turbo is clearly audible, especially at downshifts. If you like that sort of whooshing sound, you'll love it.

Due to the lower frequency of sound and the fact that the turbo eliminates the majority of high pitched peaks (as a muffler would on a road car), the soundtrack almost disappears in the TV feed as it resides much closer to the human voice register than ever, which means it mixes a lot with the voices of the commentators. Very difficult to hear the engines in a voiceover.

On the upside - because the engines are so much quieter - you can hear much more atmospheric detail even in the TV feed: the booming tone of running over kerbs (which could mostly be heard in some onboard shots before), tyre-screeching, the shifting mechanism, bumps, crashes, and most of all - crowd noise (with probably less booing and more cheering this year) that will add a lot more "being there" sense than ever.

Looking at some comments on the Internet the live experience improved for some, as the baby-friendly engines enable more socializing - it is possible to have a conversation in the grandstands whereas it was just the piercing sound of the N/A engines before. Which is fun for about ten minutes, but can be really tiring and annoying for some people and can cause a headache (even with earplugs) due to the volume and frequency-range of the sound, basically enabling only sitting next to each other. This may be a good thing for some, especially e.g. Monaco, where the walls just shoot back all that sound.

Finally, you might want to hold back your rant up until you watch the first broadcast of Formula E for a balanced comparison between no sound and the V12s. Because - let's face it - the internal combustion engines are all about to make a dramatic turn in the future.

How do you like the new soundtrack?

Kookanoodles > Gabor Vajda (@Gabor_V) 03/18/2014 at 18:30

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I agree with you wholeheartedly.