The fifth season of Formula E roared into life in Saudi Arabia at the weekend. Well, that’s not quite true. It whirred into life. Or hissed. Or whined. Or however you might describe the sound of an electric motor powering a single-seater racing car. But certainly not roared.
For some fans of motor racing, that alone is enough to remove it from the list of their priorities. The roar has to be part of the deal, whether it’s the scream of a 12-cylinder Matra engine from the 1970s – the absolute gold standard of car noise, guaranteed to pierce any form of ear defence – or the rather more decorous sound of the hybrid power units employed in today’s Formula One. And as long as petrol is still being extracted from the earth’s finite resources, the sound of internal combustion will be in some sort of demand.
Written by Richard Williams
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/dec/17/formula-e-lot-right-f1-riyadh-rules-farrago-motor-racing under the title “Formula E gets a lot right while at times managing to be as wrong as F1 ever was | Richard Williams”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
