F1 not much louder for 2016 - report

F1 is louder but not loud enough to meet the expectations of its audience, one correspondent at the Barcelona test reported on Monday.

For 2016, following widespread complaints that the ’power unit’ era has left the previously screaming sport with little more than a whimper, the F1 rules were tweaked.

Teams have had to install a separate tailpipe for the so-called ’wastegate’, for the sole benefit of turning up the volume of the turbo V6 engines.

Bild am Sonntag, a major German Sunday newspaper, said it learned that Mercedes’ 2016 unit is 12 per cent louder than its predecessor, cranking it up from 96 to 108 decibels.

As for what it sounds like in reality, Autosprint’s Cesare Maria Mannucci said from Barcelona: "The noise is a bit higher, but nothing in comparison to the V8 and V10s.

"There are 11 cars on the track" in Barcelona, Mannucci added, "but it does not seem that the noise level has increased so much. Or at least to what the viewers were hoping for."