Slowing Formula One cars down and shutting them up won’t make the blindest bit of difference to our planet’s climate: it just waters down the sensorial thrill of the race

 
1 April 2014

For obvious reasons there was a minute’s silence in the paddock before the Malaysian Grand Prix. Right and proper as it was, this was an unusual thing to hear. Formula One is defined by cacophony: the only time it’s supposed to be quiet is when the garages have closed and the cars have moved on. It is a sport to make the ears bleed.

Or is it? This season, thanks to sweeping changes to the cars, Formula One is an awful lot quieter than usual.

Smaller engines (1.6l V6s with a heavy reliance on energy recovery systems) simply don’t make the same din as the old V8s. Thus the minute’s silence on Sunday was followed by 100 more very muted minutes, otherwise known as ‘the race’. All right, so this is a slight exaggeration. The new Formula One cars aren’t totally silent: it’s not as if they’re sending the drivers around on Boris Bikes.

All the same, the sound they produce has unquestionably been diminished. Last year’s car sounded scary. This year’s just sounds shrill and annoying. Like a wasp trapped in a biscuit tin. Or a set of coat hangers jangling next to a faulty desk fan. Or Richard Hammond.

By now you may be shaking your head and pitying me for adopting such a boorish, Top Gearish line of argument. And, sure, I accept I have just made a joke in which the punchline was ‘Richard Hammond’.

But when it comes to Formula One, I think it is important to remember exactly what the sport is about: speed, geekery and noise.

Each sport, you see, has its own signature sound, from which you should be able to identify it with your eyes closed. For example, snooker creates a sine wave of perfect hush and smoothly crescendo-ing applause.

You could not possibly mistake this for, say, the sound of a darts match: all thud, thud, thud, cockney number-crunching and the constant white noise created by hundreds of flatulent oiks slurping continental lager.

Likewise, a rugby match does not sound like a football match, despite the fact that they have both evolved from the same sporting stem.

At both you will hear the thwack of leather, the urgent calls of the players and the yell of the crowd. Yet they sound totally different: their sound-prints as unique as birdsong. The essence and beauty of every sport is present in the noise it creates — and it is dangerous to try and change it.

But, of course, people do. One of the most infuriating things to have happened to rugby recently is the introduction of ‘celebration’ music whenever a try is scored. You know: Chris Ashton swan dives over the line with the ball and all of a sudden someone is playing 10 seconds of the Kaiser Chiefs over the tannoy — as if to remind us slack-jawed plebs that Something Good Has Occurred and that we must feel joy. Idiots. This also happens in cricket: it is a damned abomination and when I am in charge it will be stopped.

But back to Formula One. Clearly the 2014 cars make the wrong sort of noise. After Australia, Sebastian Vettel called it “s**t”. Bernie Ecclestone hates it. And as we sit here between the second and third races of the season, I am afraid I must agree: the new cars sound terrible.

The point of mandating quieter, cleaner cars was to partly advance Formula One’s ‘green’ credentials. But this is just a piece of humbug — false piety and political box ticking.

The whole decadent, petrol-headed point of Formula One is to create monstrous, pointlessly fast machines that belch out smoke and scream like the dragons out of Game of Thrones, so that men who wear loose-fitting Levis and listen to Status Quo can get their thrills.

Slowing the cars down and shutting them up won’t make the blindest bit of difference to our planet’s climate: it just waters down the sensorial thrill of the race. Besides which, if Formula One really cared about its green credentials, I doubt they would be racing in the fossil-fuel oases of Bahrain, Russia, the United States and Abu Dhabi. But okay. This is turning into the George Monbiot column. Time for me to stop writing and start watching monster truck racing. Loud and proud, baby. See you next time.

Broad shoulders can take the strain

England’s cricketing winter began with a whimper and ended with a groan: defeats to Australia and Holland being the bread in one big kakashka sandwich. But I admire one of the few ever-presents, Stuart Broad, who saw it all through while others shrank, hid and retired. Man has heart, as they say. He doesn’t know if he’ll stay on as short-form captain. But he should. Broad needs to be at the centre of things as England rebuild.

Lucas adds bite to league argument

“The end bit of his tongue got bit off and was hanging down… He played on for another five or 10 minutes.” That’s Dewsbury coach Glenn Morrison, talking about his second-row Lucas Walshaw. Whenever I write about rugby, meaning union, some smart-ass league fan will get in touch moaning and implying that the 13-man code is the real sport. Usually I ignore them. Today I’ll hold my hands up: league players are bred proper hard. Credit where it’s due.

Lampard signs for ‘Reading’

Frank Lampard helped launch the National Literacy Trust’s campaign to get kids reading last week — and a couple of dozen other Premier League players also nominated their favourite books. It’s amazing how many of them named Roald Dahl novels — Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and so on. There must be something in that surreal and mischievous imagination of Dahl’s that appeals to elite sportsmen. I wonder what it is. Good cause, anyway — check them out at premierleaguereadingstars.org.uk

You cannot be serious, umpire

Video assistance for officials is always helpful — but officials can still be stupid, pig-headed and wrong, as demonstrated in Andy Murray’s Sony Open semi-final against Novak Djokovic. The big screen clearly showed Djokovic hitting the ball on the wrong side of the net at a crucial point. Djokovic admitted doing it. And still the umpire refused to acknowledge the offence. What do you do about that? All the tech in the world can’t help if the man in the chair is a numbskull.

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