Bernie Ecclestone has re-iterated his opposition to the 2013 turbo engine rules, and emphasised that he’s not happy with the FIA’s pursuit of the new formula.
His main concern is that the the sport will lose engine sound that helps to make it so special.
“I meet people worldwide in all different walks of life – sponsors, promoters and journalists and I think there are two things that are really important for Formula One,” Ecclestone said on Australia’s NineMSN website. “One is Ferrari and second is the noise. People love and get excited about the noise. People who have never been to a Formula One race, when they leave you ask them what (they liked) and they say ‘the noise.’
“I brought some Russian gentlemen to Singapore and I met them afterwards in Russia – it was the first race they’d ever been to and I said what was it that impressed you. I didn’t even think about the noise and they said the most important thing was the noise – it’s incredible, it really gets to you. It’s unbelievable that even more so the women – the ladies – love the noise.”
“I’m anti, anti, anti, anti moving into this small turbo four formula. We don’t need it and if it’s so important it’s the sort of thing that should be in saloon car racing. The rest of it is basically PR – it’s nothing in the world to do with Formula One. These changes are going to be terribly costly to the sport. I’m sure the promoters will lose a big audience and I’m quite sure we’ll lose TV.”
Ecclestone admitted that he didn’t see eye-to-eye with Jean Todt: “He’s not a promoter and he’s not selling Formula One to be honest. Jean and I are a little bit at loggerheads over this engine. I don’t see the reason for it. We had the KERS system and this was supposed to solve the problem that Formula One is not green and now we’ve got something else.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Agree 100%. F1 has to have noise , and its become gradually demasuclated over the years.
Engines reduced from 3.5 liters, to 3.0 liters, to 2.4 and with the proposed 1.5 liter turbo in 2013, it will definitely turn people off.
This is the sound that people want to hear:
or this
I don’t see what the fuss is about Turbos TBH. OK, so they sound different, but the 80’s F1 cars sounded great, so why won’t they this time?
Quite frankly we need new engine rules as they are too similar and reliable these days…
The 80’s cars sounded great because nobody could see into the future and know what screaming V8’s would sound like.
I think Bernie’s right. The last time I went to a race they were using the V10s, and when I was telling friends about it, the noise *was* one of the first things I mentioned.
Changing the engine forumal is going to make hardly a spec of difference to how environmentally (un)friendly F1 is; it’s all about how the teams and spectators get to the race. THAT’s the real carbon footprint of F1. So, my solution to making it more green would be to have smaller capacity circuits, and to make sure races that are geographically close together are also close together on the calendar. That would be far greener than tinkering with 24 individual engines.
It will cost real money, though, so it’s not going to happen.
In the end, though, so long as the cars are fast and look fast, and so long as the racing is exciting without it being artificially so, then it’s all good by me.
I remember th 80s turbos being quite noisey, and still remember wastegate flutter.
Hi Adam,
I couldn’t agree more with Bernie on this.
Jean Todt and the FIA need their heads read on this one, and for that matter so did Max Mosley when he cost the teams needless cash bring in V8s for 2006.
I certainly noticed that even the V8s were quieter than the V10s, and seemed a bit slower, especially out of the corners.
F1 needs big multi-cylinder engines, that’s part of the sport’s DNA. All this talk of making F1 green etc etc seemed like a strategy to appease the big car makers. And guess what, they’re all gone!
I went to my first F1 race in 1992. I was totally blown away by the noise, especially the Honda V12s in the back of the McLarens and Footworks in thsoe days.
Anyway, a couple of clips for you and your readers of how I reckon F1 should sound:
A Mercedes V10 from 2001…
And the best sounding F1 car ever, Jean Alesi’s Ferrari V12, Australian Grand Prix qualifying, 1992…
Cheers!
Simon
On this one I’m with Bernie. Four cylinder turbos are for feeder series. Especially if they’re going to freeze the engine specs the way they are now. If they went to 4 cylinder engines, but there were no rev limits, no maximum turbo specs, and the teams were allowed to have a budget to get as much power from them as possible, then I think I’d be okay with it. But if its the same old same old only with half the cylinders then I don’t see what the point is, unless the manufacturer’s are trying to deflect criticism of the sport for not being green enough. And also as Bernie said they’ve introduced KERS and what has that done for F-1’s enviornmental street cred? Not much, and probably has created more financial waste and enviornmenta waste than if they’d have said ‘go back to V10’s.’
On the other hand, I’m glad to see Jean Todt is not a promoter per se, the FiA has needed a level headed adult at the helm for some time. Perhaps Jean does not promote F-1 the way Bernie does, but more importantly for the position he is in he does not promote himself as much as Bernie does.
PS: Bernie said he is anti, anti, anti, anti 4 cylinder turbos. That either means he’s vehemently against this, or that he’s against being against being against being against which I think adds up to being for it. Ah, he is a sly one.
We need badly some video footage of a 1983 Brabham, with good sound. We cannot forget that Nelson Piquet was World Champion with a 1.5L 4-cilinder engine.
I personally don’t think the engine will sound bad. The F1 sound comes from the high-rev and the cilinder size, and if you do the math, both would change thaaat much.
Leave the engines alone if you are unwilling to go back to the V-10’s; take off all wings and bageboards; take off all KERS use restrictions; allow undercar aero devices; and let the best driver win.
I’d have to admit a personal weakness for these two:
Of course, if Bernie REALLY wants a good engine sound he should just buy a Harley. ; )
On a more serious note … It would be interesting to allow for some variation in engine spec relative to engine weight, say something like: limit a four cylinder turbo to 675hp, and a 12 cyl to 850hp. Don’t know if that would be workable or not….
That wouldn’t be very fair would it? But I get your point. I’d say have a displacement limit and a weight limit; but it can be anything from four to twelve cylinders, in any configuration, if it’s turbo or supercharged the maximum displacement is lowered. Of course this would not be allowed because FiA would rather have a single engine specification and raise the price of doing business their way.
I think that would be a mistake.
You’ll end up with split category racing, such as in 1988 (1.5L turbo vs 3.5L NA) in which the only interest was Prost vs Senna or in series like Le Mans which has the benefit of massive grids.
Bernie setting himself up to become head of the FOTA? I wouldn’t rule it out.
I predict that there will be some whinging when the season starts in 2013 and after 2-3 races (and some on-track excitement) no one will really care as the focus shifts to what fans really care about – the actual on-track action.