Bad news Formula One fans. The turbocharged V6 engines running in 2014 sound as appealing as a Dyson upright running through an archaic amplifier. With a blown speaker. Plug in your headphones, watch the video above from Mercedes-Benz, and prepare for the aural buzzkill. Then let's chat...
For 2014, the FIA – the governing body of F1 – is requiring all teams to swap out this year's screaming, 18,000 RPM 2.4-liter V8 in favor of a turbocharged 1.6-liter V6 that only revs to around 15,000 RPM. On the upside, turbochargers allow for more creative engine tuning and they boost efficiency, and combined with a new Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) that delivers a 150-horsepower on-demand punch (double the output in 2013), will make something in the neighborhood of 750 hp. But the tonal downside doesn't have to do with the reduced displacement or even the configuration swap from a V8 to a V6 – it has to do with the exhaust and the addition of that turbo hanging from the manifold.
On the V8 – and before it, the V10 – you had two exhaust tracts running out an engine that simply sucked in air, mixed it with fuel, created a massive explosion, and then pushed it out through a pair of perfectly tuned exhaust outlets. On the V6, that exhaust gets less sexy and more complicated. To begin with, the new engine only has one exhaust pipe and that's plugged up with a turbocharger that, by its nature, muffles the sound. Add all that together with a lower RPM and you've got about as much character as Mitch McConnell on Xanax.
Now it deserves noting that Mercedes recorded the audio on an engine dyno meant to simulate the 2014 car running around the Monza circuit in Italy using the automaker's motorsport test lab in Brixworth, England. So we'll remain cautiously optimistic until we here the new mill running around a track in person. And both Ferrari and Renault are working on their own designs, with Renault releasing a slightly more pleasing audio track earlier this year. But for now, we're already playing a requiem for the sounds of the past. See below.
