Paddy Lowe says Mercedes is making progress on a project to dramatically increase the noise of the current power units.
Ever since the introduction of turbocharged V6 engines in 2014, F1 has lost the high-pitched exhaust note it became famous for in the previous V10 and V8 eras.
This year the engines have been made louder by introducing a separate wastegate pipe, with recordings on the dyno increasing from 124db to about 128db (the V8s were recorded at 129.5db). The increase is noticeable track side but still a long way short of the ear-piercing volume of the old V8s. As such the FIA has made engine noise a priority among changes to the engine regulations for 2017.
"We can do some more work on the noise, that needs to get a little bit louder in my view, but we have made a step," Lowe told ESPN. "We've got some ideas being worked on that will make a dramatic increase in noise.
"Mercedes are the prime developer of a system, but we need to develop something that makes noise without losing horsepower, but that is possible."
Another criticism of the engine regulations in 2014 was the emphasis they put on fuel saving, but Lowe says improvements in efficiency mean fuel saving is becoming less of a talking point.
"We had all this stuff with taxi driving, but in reality the numbers that were picked of 100kg fuel [for the race] and 100kg max flowrate per hour were remarkably well judged. I don't know whether that was luck or judgement!
"While people complain about drivers having to fuel save in the race and so on, we've always had to fuel save because it's never optimal to drive flatout and the degree to which we have to save fuel in the race is not excessive in my view. It's just mildly more than it used to be and is becoming less because as we make the engine more efficient, we have to do less fuel saving in the race.
"The original intention was to drop the 100kg limit year by year, so by now we should really be on 98kg, if it had been properly pursued, rather than going up to 105kg as some wanted to do."