re: The One Video That Will Make You Understand How Fast F1 Cars Really Are

Completely ignorant.

So which of the Ferrari F1's sound better?
v6 turbos
v8
v10
v12.

I think the V10s did.

Don't like how they sound, don't like that it's a parade, don't like that Mercedes is dominating (boring).

But it is the "pinnacle" of motorsports. Meaning, there is no vehicle that's going to get around any road course than an F1 car--even if they've been dialed back lately. Not Nascar, not Indy, not any motorcycle, period.

Theoretically an F1 car could run upside down on a track because of all the down-force.

It's just boring these days.

I caught a couple of F1 races back when Schumacher was still racing, and the USGP was still at Indy.

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Italians do something that effects the exhaust note beyond just being a V12. I remember back around 1990 Alfa got into Indycar racing for a year or two and while the car was not competitive it had that distinctive Italian sound even though it was a V8 just like all the others.

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There is a lot to unpack here. Probably the most characteristic Italian sound is their 8 cylinder road cars, the oversquare high revving engine with a flat plan crank just screams, Ferrari. They sound like two inline 4 cylider liter bikes running in perfect unison.

The Alfa Indy engine in the March chassis (and later Lola) was an evolution of the Ferrari Tipo 034 designed for their 637 Indycar they Ferrari half-heartedly built to pressure F1 to give them more historic money. Those type of negotiations are why Ferrari can get more money at the end of the season even if they don't come in first in the constructor's championship.
The Alfa variant of the 034 was a 2.65L IIRC and the characteristic sound came from a very wide Vee angle (120*) and the fact the exhaust came up out of the inside of the Vee. The updraft outboard intake manifolds and the odd positioning of the single turbo probably helped in voicing the engine as well. I remember it had an unusual raspy tone which is often a result of header/collector vibrations but I don't know if that was the actual case. It sounded like a very large 2 stroke to me.

Ferrari engines through the years have had characteristic sounds due to the fact Ferrari was a very closed off company. Their solutions were usually different than the rest of the F1 teams because their team was pretty much exclusively Italian so there was very little IP moving in and out of Maranello. Italians doing Italian things. While most every other F1 team always had a strong contingent of English engineers Ferrari did not. This changed dramatically in the Todt/Brawn/Byrne/Schumacher years. This set up a cosmopolitan team with France running it, England/South Africa designing and building it and a German driving with Irish/Brazilian #2s. Ferrari has moved back toward the Italian heavy employment model and hasn't done as well but they are very Italian.

Senna’s MP4/6 and Mansell’s FW14B. Some of the most glorious engine sounds I’ve ever heard

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For the lowest common denominator crowd. This one happened in the 2007 Canadian GP about 100 yards from my seat in the hairpin. Kubica walked away with no serious injuries. He was going 186mph when he hit the barrier. The cars are incredibly safe and even more so today. Kubica crash

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Interesting that you bring this up, as I see it probably once a month. One of our lead composite engineers comes from F1 and was responsible for this crash. It was a miscalculation on the rear spoiler that caused it to disconnect throwing the balance off.

He and the driver and still friends and was without F1 through another 5 years before coming over. That sport is the most strenuous mental sport there is.