Listen to Lewis Hamilton’s 2016 F1 car

World champions Mercedes have released a short teaser of their 2016 F1 car firing up, giving fans their first taste of the sound it will make with the new and improved exhausts that are being introduced this season.

F1 bosses have altered the regulations on tailpipes to address complaints that hybrid engines were not loud enough to excite spectators and audiences watching on TV.

If the above clip is anything to go by, the changes might well have done the trick.

Mercedes aren’t the only team to have made the internet a little bit noisier, with Ferrari and McLaren-Honda posting similar efforts online in the last few days.

Reports over the winter have suggested that Honda have fixed the flaws that held them back last year, with some going as far as saying that the upgrades will put them right back in the mix come the first race in Melbourne next month.

Just how accurate the speculation is remains to be seen, although Fernando Alonso himself claimed that a lap-time gain of two-and-a-half seconds was possible during the off-season.

The teams will have a much better idea of where they stand after the first pre-season test in Barcelona, which begins at the Circuit de Catalunya next week.

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