Motorsport without the noise

As the new year’s high wears off and routine returns, motorsport begins its slow reawakening.

- AYUSHI SINGH

Dust lifts off garage floors. Pit walls wake up. The conference room lights come on long before the engines do.

‘The 2026 Formula One season is close enough now to be felt — not just anticipated, but argued over. Team launches, driver lineups, regulation resets. The familiar chatter of a sport preparing to return. But beneath it, something else hasbeen building for years. Nota new sound, exactly, but the slow removal of one. Alongside the talk of new cars and new combinations sits a more unsettled question: What motorsport hasbeen shedding as it changes. Not only in rules ortechnology, but in texture. In how it announces itself.

Noise. This matters because Formula One remains motorsport’s loudest reference point. It is the most watched, the most circulated — a championship whose season-long broadcast reach stretches past a billion viewers worldwide. When Formula One changes, it reshapes what most people recognise as motorsport.