Recipe for disaster: New F1 cars ugly, slower and sound boring (2nd Update)

UPDATE #2 Bernie Ecclestone was "responding to the evidence of this past week's first pre-season test in Jerez, where several teams have struggled with the unfamiliar fuel-efficient engines – which, even when they have run, have proved only a fraction as loud as the old V8s with their banshee scream."

As Ecclestone spoke, Red Bull’s top execs were "skulking away in mid-afternoon, unable to do any more testing after they grappled to fit their Renault-supplied power unit into the chassis." Overheating "was the result." F1 "feeds off the image of speed and glamour." The loudest and fastest cars in the world "are part of the allure." But in Jerez, some of the cars "were 11 seconds off the lap record"

02/02/14 CORRECTION: The official times were five seconds quicker than those listed in the AR1 article below. Sorry for the confusion.

This week’s official aggregate test times from Jerez:
1. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1m 23.276s, 162 laps
2. Felipe Massa, Williams, 1m 23.700s, 133 laps
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1m 23.952s, 121 laps
4. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1m 24.165s, 83 laps
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1m 24.812s, 78 laps
6. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1m 25.344s, 42 laps
7. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1m 25.495s, 173 laps
8. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1m 25.588s, 188 laps
9. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1m 26.096s, 17 laps
10. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1m 28.376s, 48 laps
11. Daniel Juncadella, Force India, 1m 29.457s, 81 laps
12. Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso, 1m 29.915s, 45 laps
13. Adrian Sutil, Sauber, 1m 30.161s, 103 laps
14. Jules Bianchi, Marussia, 1m 32.222s, 25 laps
15. Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber, 1m 33.270s, 60 laps
16. Marcus Ericsson, Caterham, 1m 37.975s, 12 laps
17. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1m 38.320s, 11 laps
18. Kamui Kobayashi, Caterham, 1m 43.193s, 54 laps
19. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1m 44.016s, 9 laps
20. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1m 45.374s, 10 laps
21. Robin Frijns, Caterham, No time, 10 laps
22. Max Chilton, Marussia, No time, 5 laps

02/02/14 F1 has managed to not only make their cars hideous looking, they have relegated them to GP2 speeds. Based on lap times a GP2 will now be on par with an F1 car. What fans will pay F1 prices to watch ugly cars go slow and many times not even finish the race. And because the cars are so different we probably will not see any close racing – just cars circulating around the track separated by seconds until the end, or until they fall out. To make matters even worse, the cars engines no longer scream, a signature F1 sound for decades.

It could be the downfall of F1.

Below is a comparison of lap times at the first 2013 F1 test at Jerez vs. the 2014 lap times at the same first test. As you can see, they are now almost 11 seconds per lap slower.

2014 Jerez Test Times

2013 Jerez Lap Times