Vroom, Vroom…

If you have ever heard an F1 car live you know the earth shattering noise they make. If you’ve only seen the races on TV then a large part of the experience is missing. One car being driven hard is loud, 24 on the opening lap of a grand prix is something else entirely.

You don’t so much hear the cars, as feel the noise. It’s a very visceral experience and in the sanitized safety-Nazi world we live in is possibly quite unique.

Today an F1 engine spin at about 18,000 RPM, that’s down from the 20,000 RPM redline of a couple of years ago. For comparison my Miata engine redlines at about 6500 RPM. This speed adds so much to the race going experience.

Starting in 2013 the 2.4 liter V8 screamers are history, to be replaced by a smaller 1.6 liter turbo engine that is limited to 10,000 RPM. Through use of the turbo and energy recovery systems that power will be about the same, but the noise will be very, very different.

F1 is following the trend of smaller, more efficient road cars. Small turbo (and diesel turbo) engines are seen by many manufacturers as the way forward, a trend more obvious in Europe where every manufacturer has small (1.3-1.8 liter) turbocharged engines. I’ve had a couple in rental cars over the last year and they were very good efficient cars, the Peugeot 207 was exceptionally nice to drive.

F1 as an industry needs all the help it can get when it comes to polishing it’s efficiency/green image (again something far more important in Europe than in the US). As sports go F1 is pretty up front about it’s conspicuous consumption, and I’ve been told this has scared off a couple of potential sponsors that see social responsibility as core to their image. I’m not sure adopting smaller turbo engines and going to a maximum fuel load for a race is going to help F1 adopt the same “we love the earth over money” image, but it’s a start.

It seems rather strange at a time teams and the FIA want costs reduced, such a substantial rule change will cause the manufacturers to spend significant resources to build a new generation of engines. Development bills will come to at least tens of millions of dollars, possibly a lot more. Mercedes and Ferrari have been against the change for this very reason. The current engines are reliable (mostly) and the big investments have been made (again mostly) and they are sound really good.

2010 was a great season, no only were five drivers and three teams competing at the sharp end of the championship, there were three different engine manufacturers too. Keeping the same competitiveness while pushing the envelope of turbo technology and maintaining reliability will be a tall order for the rule makes in Paris.

A lot of fans who have been around a while may remember the time turbocharged engines were around in F1, they were outlawed after the 1988 season. Living large from that time is the legend of the BMW 1.5 liter turbo engine. When I worked for Cosworth, Nelson Piquet was driving for Benetton in ’91 and one evening talked about driving the Brabham in the mid 80’s powered by the turbo BMW. In qualifying with the boost turned up he said it was like driving with a light switch, you either had everything or nothing. He claimed it was horrible to drive, but it had enough power to run the biggest wings and the stickiest tyres to give every piece of grip you could find.

The story goes that one is totally sure how much power it produced, because BMW never had a dyno that went high enough. It’s been said that the later models developed something like 1300 HP in qualifying trim, it was not good for much more than one or two flying laps in qualifying, but must have been impressive to watch.

The new engines will be nothing like that; the reliability rules requiring a driver to only use 8 engines a year are still there. It’s an interesting departure, but if you are the slightest petrol head, go experience a proper noisy F1 while you can.