Conclusion on new louder 2016 F1 engines: Crap

Ecclestone says the engines are still crap. They certainly sound crappy

Remember how we were promised the 2016 Formula 1 grid would be "around 12 percent louder," thanks to a newly-designed dual exhaust setup specifically and solely made to emit more noise? Heh. Psych. Turns out it sounds exactly the same as the old setup, to spectators and drivers alike.

That's the report from The Associated Press. Reporter Tales Azzoni, covering F1 preseason testing at the Catalunya racetrack outside Barcelona, Spain, interviewed drivers and fans and found that nobody can really sense any difference in how the 2016 cars sound. See for yourself:

• Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg said the car "sounds similar" to what it did last year. Sauber driver Felipe Nasr noticed only "a little" increase in the engine sound.
• Red Bull's chief engineer officer Rob Marshall said F1 would have been better off without the exhaust changes. "I think the new exhausts are a waste of time," Marshall told The Associated Press. "I don't think it has made it any noisier. I think it just made the car a bit heavier."
• "I think it's a little bit better," McLaren racing director Eric Boullier said, before pausing to rethinking his answer, "Isn't it?"
• "It's a very small difference, to be honest," Force India driver Sergio Perez said. "I don't think there's a massive difference from last year."
• "I think the cars sound the same as they did before, perhaps just a little throatier," said 31-year-old Spaniard fan Dani Huguet, a regular at the track. "They need to try something else to improve this, either by changing the size of this turbo or going back to the old engines, which is what everybody really wants."
• Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg did not need any more time to reach his conclusion. "There's no difference, it sounds similar to me," he said.

It's possible that the layout of the Circuit de Barcelona had something to do with the sound that drivers and fans were experiencing—sound behaves different at this compact track than it might at a more spread-out course. But these early reports don't hold much promise for a louder, more dramatic F1 season.