Between the conclusion of the 2014 Australian Grand Prix and the commencement of the 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix (Yes, the land of the multi-21 saga!), Ricciardo’s penalty and subsequent appeal followed by the sound of the engines have shared maximum share of conversation amongst fans, media and even Formula1 drivers (read: Button vs. Vettel). Although, this was mostly visible amongst those who didn’t listen to our previous episode ‘More Torque, Less Talk’!
In this week’s episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, Rishi and I too succumbed to the eventual debate on the ‘sound’ of the engine, its importance or not and what we believe fans would like to see (or hear in this case!). Amidst the engine talk and just one GP into the season, there’s discussion of Mercedes dominating in the 2014 Formula1 season. A little too early we say, but the prospect of Red Bull Racing doing the chasing is still very relishing. But of course, will Renault be their ally in it? And where’s Ferrari in all this? Questions that will get answered once the season progresses.
Here’s what is in store in our latest Formula1 podcast:
- Before we get sucked into our egoistical and self-centered world of Formula1, our condolences to the victims and families of the MH370!
- FIA, FOM, F1 teams, drivers, media, fans, sponsors, promoters and every stakeholder directly or indirectly involved wants ‘improved’ engine sounds. So then who the hell wrote this damn ‘formula’? (Read: Gracias V8, Hola V6 Turbo)
- Has Formula1 single-handedly destroyed the ear plug manufacturing industry? Err! Yes, we could be exaggerating slightly!
- And in Malaysia, given that the circuit is so expansive, will the engine sounds be even meeker?
- Lauda says that ‘engine sounds’ are an emotional connect for the fans with the sport and we agree. But if this is the future of racing and road cars, we tell you why we are worried!
- How do we measure the effectiveness of these regulations? We give you our views.
- And no, please do us a favour Formula1, we do not want engine ‘sounds’ to be enhanced artificially. Cosmetic surgeries have anyway been performed on the nose sections! Engines can’t be next!
- We’ve said ‘racing first, engineering later’, is it really that difficult for the sport to figure what we fans want?
- And lastly, our predictions for the 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix!
It will be an emotional Grand Prix for Formula1 and all of Malaysia. On one hand we shall pray for MH370 and on the other, for Michael Schumacher; Come Back Michael!
And before I end this post, a BIG thank you to all our listeners and even more so our social media groups that have helped promote the viewership base of my F1 blog and the Inside Line F1 Podcast. If you’re an F1 fan and not following ‘Die Hard F1 Fan‘, ‘Addicted To Formula1‘ and ‘F1Extra‘ on social media, you are surely missing out on some exciting real-time updates!
The Inside Line F1 Podcast is now available on various platforms and I would urge you to choose your platform to listen to the humour that we add to the otherwise serious and complex sport of Formula1. And while our podcast frequency is weekly, come ‘like‘ the Inside Line F1 Podcast page on Facebook for far frequent updates on the humour in the world of Formula1.
If you are an Apple user, you can subscribe to the Inside Line F1 Podcast on the iTunes Podcast Store or via our RSS feed (for Android/Windows/Blackberry users).
The Inside Line Formula1 Podcast is produced and hosted by Rishi Kapoor and Kunal Shah. Follow us on Twitter and on our Soundcloud, Spreaker, MixCloud and YouTube channels.
3 comments On Engine No-ise
You’re welcome guys! Glad to share.. 🙂
Now my “noisy” rant:
Unlike some people claim, its not about the TV volume at all.
The turbo effectively silences the exhaust to a point where you hear only about 30% of the engine noise
The engine itself hasn’t gotten all that more efficient suddenly.
Technically, yes, today’s F1 is far superior to last year’s F1 in terms of power units
But, this is also a sport, a source of entertainment. The audience is not a bunch of auto engineers that will look at the technical side of it and ignore the lack of drama that the engine noise created in the past.
The engine noise was one of F1’s biggest selling points and the first thing that hit anyone who was new to the sport. Taking that away is like leaving the sport on one real leg, and one prosthetic leg (albeit a high tech one).
The turbo was the worst thing they could do to the F1 engine. Forced induction is not “new tech” at all!
Advancing technically, while keeping the soul of the sport intact is where F1 failed.
And the FIA doesn’t have an answer to that yet
One question everyone asks is “why are the cars getting slower while the technology is advancing so fast?”
Shouldn’t the aim be to maintain performance levels while consuming less fuel?
Why are aerodynamics being capped so tightly? Aren’t aerodynamics a good thing? They contribute to the overall efficiency of the car after all! Tighter aero regs only make the sport expensive as it takes astronomical amounts of work and resources to gain miniscule amounts of aero performance as engineers and designers have to find loopholes and iterate things a billion times over to gain probably half a tenth in lap time.
About cost-cutting/fuel-saving measures (that have failed miserably!):
Why aren’t teams being told not to haul entire motorhomes and hospitality units all around the world? That’s a massive waste of resources including fuel!
Why does FOM have to haul tonnes of TV equipment to every race? Every race is held in a civilised, fairly developed country, where all the necessary equipment would be easy enough to source.
That’s where the real fuel saving could come from.
100 kilos of race fuel as opposed to 150 kilos, is just a speck of dust in the grand scheme of F1.
Some of the races on the calendar are so badly lined up that it makes no sense!
Like going from Monaco to Montreal and then back to Austria!
And again flying everything out to US from Russia. Then from Brazil to Abu Dhabi…
I mean, what kind of a blithering idiot would plan a calendar like that? It just makes me laugh when they plan a calendar like that and then talk about saving fuel!
Interesting points Ritesh. Will look to address some of these in the coming podcast. Cheers!
And thanks again for the introduction tune!! Will be using it right away!
Cheers Kunal 🙂