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Ecclestone wonders if F1's upcoming turbo V6s should get augmented sound [w/videos]

While every team on the Formula One grid is worried about making a good showing in this year's championship at the same time as they develop a brand-new car for next year's championship, Bernie Ecclestone and F1 circuit promoters have a different concern: how next year's cars will sound. The current cars use 2.4-liter, naturally-aspirated V8s that can reach 18,000 revolutions per minute and employ dual exhaust, next year's engine formula calls for 1.4-liter turbocharged V6s that are capped at 15,000 rpm and are constrained to a single exhaust outlet. Ecclestone and promoters like Ron Walker believe the new engines sound like lawnmowers and that the less thrilling audio will keep people from coming to races. If Walker's Australian Grand Prix really is shelling out almost $57 million to hold the race, every ticket counts. As a fix, according to a report in Autoweek, Ecclestone "suggests that the only way to guarantee [a good sound] may be to artificially adjust the tone of the V6s."
However, neither the manufacturers nor the governing body of F1, the FIA, think there will be a problem. Ecclestone fears that if the manufacturers "don't get it right" they'll simply leave the sport, but the only three carmakers and engine builders left next year, Renault (its 2014 "power unit" is pictured), Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari are so embedded that it would stretch belief to think they'd leave the table over an audio hiccup - if said hiccup even occurs. And frankly, these issues always precede changes to engine formulas, as they did when the formula switched from V10 to V8; fans, though, are probably less focused on the engines and more on the mandated standardization of the sport and the spec-series overtones that have come with it.
No one knows yet what next year's engines will sound like, but we've assembled a few videos below to help us all start guessing. The first is an engine check on an Eighties-era John Player Special Renault with a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, after that is Ayrton Senna qualifying in 1986 in the Lotus 98T that also had a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, then you'll find a short with a manufactured range of potential V6 engine notes, and then the sound of turbocharged V6 Indycars testing last year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Any, or none of them, could be Formula One's future.

Fiat Chrysler's Marchionne being treated in Zurich

ZURICH — Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne was being treated in a Zurich hospital on Sunday with a serious illness after suffering complications following shoulder surgery. A Fiat Chrysler spokesman confirmed Marchionne was in Zurich's University Hospital, one of Switzerland's largest medical centers. The FCA spokesman did not give the 66-year-old Italian-Canadian executive's condition or say in which of the hospital's 43 divisions he was being treated. Italian news outlets said he has been in a coma since Friday, is breathing with the help of a ventilator, and that attempts to have him breath on his own were unsuccessful. Fiat Chrysler named its Jeep division boss Mike Manley on Saturday to take over immediately from Marchionne, who had been due to step down next April. SGS, the Swiss logistics services company, also announced on Sunday that it had named a new acting chairman to take over for Marchionne, since his illness prevented him from fulfilling the role's obligations. SGS said in a statement it was "deeply saddened" by the news, as did Lausanne, Switzerland-based Philip Morris International, where Marchionne is also on the board. Marchionne was credited with rescuing Fiat and Chrysler from bankruptcy after taking the Italian carmaker's wheel in 2004. On Saturday he was also replaced as chairman and CEO of Ferrari and chairman of tractor maker CNH Industrial — both spun off from FCA in recent years. In additional management changes linked to Marchionne's illness, Ferrari named FCA Chairman and Agnelli family scion John Elkann as new chairman and Louis Camilleri becomes chief executive. Reporting by John Miller in ZurichRelated Video: Image Credit: Reuters Chrysler Ferrari Fiat US

Race Recap: 2014 Spanish Grand Prix is boom and bust [spoilers]

The Spanish Grand Prix's 2.892-mile Circuit de Catalunya is considered a preview for the rest of the season, since it's a combination of long front straight and twisting middle sectors mimic sections from every other Formula One track to follow. After the long break following the flyaway races to open the season, teams and fans have also been looking forward to this race to see if anyone had a realistic hope of catching Mercedes AMG Petronas; Infiniti Red Bull Racing honcho Christian Horner boiled his team's outlook for the season down to the line, "We've got to [beat them in Spain] if we're going to make a championship of it."
If we take that as our starting point then the weekend began as a bust. Lewis Hamilton only just beat Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg for pole, the Brit's final effort getting him 0.178 seconds clear of the German. Daniel Ricciardo, proving Red Bull is at least the best of the rest, took third but did so more than a second behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas of Williams lined up fourth, almost 1.5 second behind and Romain Grosjean delivered overdue good news for Lotus by taking fifth on the grid, more than 1.7 seconds behind pole. Kimi Räikkönen in sixth outqualified his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso in seventh, but he couldn't be happy about it because the Ferraris were nearly two seconds behind, and Jenson Button in eighth in the McLaren was more than two second behind. Felipe Massa put the second Williams in ninth, and Sebastian Vettel overcame a terrible start to the weekend to make it into Q3, then didn't set a time when his gearbox failed, then got dropped five places to 15th on the grid when the gearbox had to be changed.
When the lights went out, then came the boom...