TBK-Light.com

The sale of rose-tinted spectacles must have gone through the roof in Formula 1 circles in recent days. Such has been the outpouring of derision from fans, the sport's promoters and some circuit owners about the current cars' lack of sound, you'd have been forgiven for thinking the sport had left an era of brilliance to return to the dark ages.

It's clear some think that having a new competitive order in F1, cars that are faster in a straight line and more sideways in the corners, machinery that allows rookies to match their more experienced rivals, and technology that's got car makers and sponsors excited again, are unimportant.

Instead, those shouting the loudest think F1 is ruined solely because we no longer need to wear earplugs to drown out the noise of the engines. It seems they would have much preferred to stick with the V8s.

But if we pause for a moment and consider what would have happened to F1 if the new regulations had been ditched, the answer is simple: we would be in a whole heap of trouble right now.

For a start, carrying on with the V8s would have prompted an engine crisis. As car makers push on with selling products that are more environmentally friendly, the ever-increasing expenditure on an F1 using frozen-spec V8 engines with no relevance to road cars was becoming ever harder to justify.

It's no secret that Renault would have pulled out of the sport if the new rules had not come in to play, which would have meant a scramble for Red Bull, Lotus, Toro Rosso and Caterham to find replacement engines.

Mercedes and Ferrari may have been able to expand their supply deals a little, but they would certainly have been under no obligation to do so. And it would not have been so easy to persuade Cosworth to bring its F1 engine operation back into life.

Even if F1 had been able to muddle through, alarm bells would have been ringing about its longer term sustainability, for the levels of interest from other manufacturers to step in were pretty much zero since the last car-maker exodus.

So we can rest assured that the future McLaren-Honda partnership would definitely not be happening if we had V8s rather than the new hybrid turbos.

Beyond the shaky engine situation, there's little reason to think that carrying on with the old generation of rules would have changed anything in competitive terms from last year either. Judging by the aerodynamic brilliance of the current RB10, whichever of the V8s Red Bull had got hold of would have been enough to keep the Sebastian Vettel steamroller going.

So Melbourne may well have delivered the German's 10th consecutive victory. Worse than that, it would probably have been a boring procession too, because let's not forget that Pirelli is being ultra-conservative this year to ensure that its tyres are no longer a talking point.

A boring race and another Vettel win would have given many followers of the sport reason enough to switch off, irrespective of the noise and certainly not withstanding desperate measures like double points.

No one is pretending that some F1 fans don't need winning over about the pleasures that the new engine sounds bring trackside, but the sport's boss has a duty to help the situation and not join in the criticism.

How about moving the trackside microphones closer to the action, and making any necessary tweaks, so the fans at home get a real audible treat?

I will miss the sound of the V8s, just as I miss the V10s and the V12s, but that's no reason to moan about what we have now.

F1 has to move with the times, and I would much rather be looking through sunglasses to a brighter future than peering through rose-tinted spectacles at a skewed perspective of the past.

And there in lies the problem. An engine freeze that took away the impetus of the car manufacturers to actually improve on their engines. Rather than have a strict engine restriction or ridged set of rules, they should have set guidelines (say fuel flow limits or RPM limits) and let the manafacturers design what ever the hell they wanted. Now THAT would have made F1 road relevant as they wouldn't have been pigeon holed into designing a highly specific type of engine that the car manufacturers may necessarily not even make for their road cars.

As I said in a previous post, if Ferarri thought the best way was to make a revolutionary V12 and Renault the current V6 then so be it, as they would have been promoting their own product/design philosophies.

And before anyone talks about the costs, just look at what has happened now with this enforced engine, costs have sky rocketed, they have become hideously complex, and I would hazzad a guess that the knock on costs associated with wasted work hours and replacement of other parts has been through the roof as well.

I would not be such a vocal voice about the current V6 engines if the manufacturers came up with this on their own steam (and for that matter the dick noses), but seeing as this was forced upon them, I find the FIA solely to blame for trying to be "seen" as being more important than they really are to the automotive world.

And there in lies the problem. An engine freeze that took away the impetus of the car manufacturers to actually improve on their engines. Rather than have a strict engine restriction or ridged set of rules, they should have set guidelines (say fuel flow limits or RPM limits) and let the manafacturers design what ever the hell they wanted. Now THAT would have made F1 road relevant as they wouldn't have been pigeon holed into designing a highly specific type of engine that the car manufacturers may necessarily not even make for their road cars.

This is a RACING series for crying out loud, not a NOISE series.