The focus of the following guide is to help people gain a broad understanding of how setups work, how the individual settings interact with each other and what has changed compared to the previous games.
How to Start
Intro
The games handling model has received the biggest change in over a decade, reworking in the background large components of how several of these settings function. As a result of that, things are subject to change (especially given the current feedback people are providing…). Because of this, my goal is not to display the current “meta” in this guide as it’s simply way too early to call. I will however display and give rough advice based on the extensive testing I conducted during the beta.. With all that out of the way, let’s get to work.
Aerodynamics
The aerodynamics settings allow you to alter the front- and the rear wing. Like in the previous game, this setting can be changed in onesteps from 0-50, with 0 providing the smallest front/rear wing and 50 the biggest one. The larger the respective wing, the more grip said part will produce in corners. However, as a downside, the larger the wing, the more topspeed you lose. This effect starts occurring after you shift into 7th gear. If you increase the front wing setting, you will gain rotation. Likewise if you increase the rear wing, you will have more stability and grip at all time.
This setting generally defines the behaviour of your car the most. Balancing out these settings allows you to define whether your car is more aggressive or more passive, whether it is fast in a straight line or very good in the corners. The difference between front and rear wing is generally referred to as “wing gap”. In the previous game and in F1 24, you will use more front than rear wing on most tracks. The exception to this rule are the tracks where you will use either such high downforce that maximum rear wing levels are required (monaco) or you try to maximize topspeed with all means necessary (Monza).
Generally in F1 24, these settings are very flexible. Because the cars have such a high amount of default grip at the moment, it is possible to run very different settings on a track while achieving similar laptimes. Therefore, you should set the wing gap the way you prefer it. If you like a more oversteery car, increase the wing gap compared and vice versa.
Overall, it is likely that we will use a lower rear wing in F1 24 on most tracks compared to F1 23. Even zero rear wing is not out of the question for most of the high speed tracks. The front wing is likely to remain very similar on most tracks, creating a larger wing gap. Exceptions to this baseline may be high speed tracks where you will try to keep the wing gap lower and gain your rotation with the suspension. More on this later
TLDNR for 5 lap races or to start out with on F1 24
Use your front wing setting from F1 23. Lower your rear wing setting by 5-10 clicks, depending on how much you like aggression.
Differential
The differential settings allow you to change the on throttle differential, the off throttle differential and the engine braking settings. The on throttle differential changes how your differential reacts when you are on the throttle (hence the name^^). A higher setting will lead to more overall stability, but also higher chances for “power oversteer” (snap oversteer). The settings in the game are always set to “remove” the percentage of wheel speed from the previous fully open differential. This means a 30% on throttle is a differential that is open for 70%.
The off throttle applies when you are not on the throttle, therefore mostly while you are braking and turning into corners. A lower setting provides more rotation into the corner while a higher setting leaves you with more stability. Engine braking functions extremely similar to the off throttle differential; a higher setting will give you more turn in into corners. At the same time, engine braking gives you more stopping power and recovers additional ERS. The value of engine braking you can use heavily depends on your other settings that affect braking.
These are the off throttle differential, the brake pressure and the brake bias. If you are using more aggressive settings there (lower off throttle differential, higher brake pressure, lower brake bias), you will not be able to run as much engine braking without the car becoming very unstable. While there is a maximum amount of ERS you can generate on each track, the added value of stopping power means engine braking is very desirable at the moment. The on throttle is generally best set for a balanced value, with a more open differential for faster corners and a more locked differential for slow sections.
TLDNR for 5 lap races or to start out with on F1 24
Run between 50-75 on throttle differential. Off throttle is highly dependent on your engine braking and brake pressure/bias values, but will typically be anywhere between 40-80%. Use high amounts when combined with 100% brake pressure and high engine braking to maximize braking performance.
Camber and Toe
Camber this year provides a significant change to how the car handles. A lower (more negative value) increases your performance in corners whereas a higher value (less negative) provides you a better longitudinal performance (under braking and acceleration). Toe in/out describes how your wheels are pointed. Front tyres use toe out, meaning the tyres are pointed outwards. This provides a better performance of grip and stability while the car is turning, at the cost of performance under braking and front stability. The rear tyres use toe in, providing more stability at the cost of responsiveness.
Generally the cars have extremely good initial turn in this year. The braking performance also is very good. All this leads to us using alot of negative camber on most tracks (maybe with the exception of monza). Toe is currently not set at all, all values are possible. Feel free to experiment with it.
TLDNR for 5 lap races or to start out with on F1 24
Run the most negative camber possible (LL). Use whatever toe settings you like, just keep front and rear toe similar.
Suspension
Suspension allows you to change three different settings: the suspension, the anti-rollbars and the ride height. Where in previous games, suspension and rollbar had similar functions, these have been split apart in the rework. Each setting now controls very different functions, much like in real life. The suspension very much functions as a spring element now and allows you how stiff you want your car to be. A softer setup provides great mechanical grip, which results in great performance in slow corners. If you are looking to maximize aerodynamic performance, particularly for faster corners, the suspension should be more stiff instead.
Rollbars in return only change as their name describes how much the car rolls in corners. This has a significant effect on how your car approaches corners. The stiffer the rollbar, the more stable and better performing the car will be turning into corners. However the longer the corner becomes the more likely it is for the rollbars to be unable to handle the load on the car. This can lead to understeer or snap oversteer, depending on your inputs.
It is worth noting that for both suspension and rollbars the relation of your front and rear settings have a significant impact on the balance of the car. If your rear suspension or rollbars are stiffer than your front suspension, the car will have more rotation into corners. If your front suspension/rollbar is higher than the rear, thenyour car will be more stable throughout the corner.
Ride height is the last setting on the suspension that complements the previous two settings. It is especially interactive with the suspension/springs setting.What combines them is that a lower setting brings the car lower to the ground. This lower centre of mass improves cornering and aerodynamic efficiency. A lower front ride height improves downforce and therefore cornering performance. However if it’s too low, you will scrape the floor, losing control of the front tyres and alot of topspeed.
A lower rear ride height similarly improves aerodynamic performance and topspeed. Additionally to this, the difference between the front and rear ride height is often referred to as “chassis rake” (or just rake). Rake additionally causes increased downforce. This is increased if you have a larger difference between front and rear. At the same time, a very high rear ride height is inefficient aerodynamically and will lower your average aero performance.
The key to unlocking the correct ride height values lies in the suspension/springs. The stiffer you set your corresponding front or rear suspension, the lower you can set the corresponding ride height. You want to use this efficiently. As an example: if just 5-10 clicks of additional rear suspension allow you to lower the rear ride height by 5-10 clicks, this is aerodynamically very efficient. Aerodynamically speaking the optimal car is very stiff and low to the ground. This provides the best aero performance overall, however is very hard to drive and has a bad performance in slow corners. Therefore it’s best to be efficient.
In general, the suspension/springs settings are looking to not change very much from F1 23. If anything, the rear suspension may end up being slightly stiffer while the front suspension will remain the same. The rollbars however will have to be alot stiffer compared to the previous 3-1 meta, because low rollbars overload your tyres and generally provides a poor performance through most corners. The front ride height is typically set as low as possible while the rear ride height will change heavily depending on your suspension values, trying to go as low as possible for your respective suspension value. You can test this by checking on a big straight whether you are losing a lot of time. If you are, then you are scraping the floor and should either stiffen your suspension or increase your ride height setting.
TLDNR for 5 lap races or to start out with on F1 24
Run 41 front suspension. The rear suspension will be a lot softer, typically between 1-4 most likely (u can experiment with higher values on high speed tracks if it allows you to lower rear ride height). Rollbars are unfortunately not implemented correctly at the moment, allowing us to run the stiffest settings with very little drawback. That’s why I recommend 21-21 as a default. This however is quite aggressive so you have to adjust the rest of your settings. The ride height is EXTREMLY track dependant; the front ride height will likely range anywhere from 20 to 25 with the rear ride height ranging from 50 to 65 on the bumpiest tracks. As a default for most tracks I’d recommend: 41-1-21-21-20-60. Lower or increase the ride height values depending on how bumpy the track is.
Brakes
For the brakes, you are allowed to set the brake pressure and the brake bias. The brake pressure controls the maximum amount that you can apply the brakes while the brake bias controls how this force is distributed between the front and rear brakes. If you are using higher brake bias values, more stopping power will come from the front, granting increased stability. If you lower it, you will gain increased rotation under braking. However this can overload the car causing “rear locking”.
Generally for hard straight braking, you will want a high brake pressure combined with a higher brake bias value for the optimum stopping power and stability. The more you have to brake without maximum stopping power, particularly more difficult braking zones while turning the car, the better lower brake pressure values become. In F1 24 the front brakes gained strength compared to F1 23. This counteracts the drifting we were able to do on F1 23. This is no longer possible.
Overall the brake pressure and brake bias is an extremely personal setting that does not reward alot of lap time. Therefore you should set it for your own consistency.
TLDNR for 5 lap races or to start out with on F1 24
Set brake pressure anywhere between 97 and 100%. 100% will technically be the fastest on most tracks. Set the brake bias individually, but typically it will end up between 53 and 57%.
Tyres
Last but certainly not least, the game allows you to set the tyre pressures individually for each tyre. The tyre model has been completely remodeled in F1 24 to be much more realistic compared to real life. The higher you set the pressure, the less rolling resistance the tyre will have, providing a minor increase in top speed. Additionally there will also be less heat generated inside the tyre, reducing your tyre temperatures (therefore being opposite to the games description!). Lowering the tyre pressure on the other hand increases the grip the tyre can provide and is therefore faster IF they don’t overheat. However lower tyre pressures also cause the tyres to overheat.
In F1 24 many of the tyre compounds (C1-C5) received significant changes to mirror the compounds in real life. As a result the differences between them are now much larger, the temperature windows are vastly different and their behaviour and tyre dropoff is aswell. Completely analyzing this will be longer than this entire guide so far, so I will skip that for a later date. The most important thing to know is that the ingame strategies are now vastly incorrect based on these changes. Therefore you will have to test the race strategies yourself (or look into a sheet that will likely be made very quickly).
Overall, the soft tyres overheat much more easily compared to the previous games and can even happen during the qualifying lap. However the dropoff from overheating your tyres isn’t as significant. In general, warming the tyres up during qualifying will also be way more difficult because we can no longer do it by dragging the brakes. This will result in you just doing very fast outlaps (or abusing a dangerous bug that existed in the beta, if you know, you know and use at your own risk). In the end, tyre temperatures differ between the different tyres significantly and differ between qualifying and race significantly, so it is likely you will end up running individual settings on most tracks for each tyre to maximize performance.
TLDNR for 5 lap races or to start out with on F1 24
Start out on maximum tyre pressures, especially for the race. It can never be wrong, you might just be leaving some time on the table. If you actually prepare for a league race, make sure to minmax these settings for your strategy in the race to get the tyres in the optimal window in both stints.
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