F1 25: How To Create The Perfect Car Setup

Creating the perfect car setup in F1 25 is essential for gaining a competitive edge, whether you’re racing in Career Mode, My Team, or competing online. A well-balanced setup can dramatically improve lap times, tyre wear, and your cars handling at each track.

Our step-by-step setup guide covers everything you need to know to create and fine-tune your car setup for any track in F1 25. I’ll look at adjusting the aerodynamics for each circuit type, how the suspension setup works, and how tyre pressures affect your handling and wear.

My goal is to share enough knowledge that you can confidently jump into the car setup screen and make adjustments to fix any handling issues your facing.

What is a car setup and how does it affect your car

Starting right at the top, what exactly does a car setup do to your car, and why do we want to change it? In F1 25, you can make adjustments to various parts of your car, just like the real-world Formula 1 teams can. These adjustments can greatly affect how the car handles, how fast it is, and even tyre wear during a race.

You’ll hear Crofty and other commentators during an F1 broadcast talking about aero levels, ride height and tyre pressures most weekends. These are all crucial areas of a car setup that teams play around with. the goal really is to create a car which balances speed, stability and tyre wear.

Are car setups different for time trial and races?

There are multiple ways of approaching car setups. You may want the fastest possible setup to set a blisteringly quick time in time trial, or a setup that makes the car easier to drive consistently during a race. These approaches are pretty different, meaning, you’d set up the car differently for each occasion.

I wouldn’t recommend using a time trial car setup in a race, and vice versa. Time trial setups don’t account for tyre wear, and often forgo stability for outright speed. And this combination makes them harder to drive during a race, and will cause your tyres to wear excessively.

If you do want to use the time trial car setups from the top of the leaderboard in a race, I’d recommend making a few key changes.

Below are the changes to turn a time trial setup into a race setup;

• Lower the aero for better top speed.
• Lower your on throttle differential, and increase the off throttle for stability and more predictable handling.
• Soften your suspension, and lower the rake for more stability.
• Adjust the tyre pressures up or down to optimise your tyre wear during a race.

Checklist for creating an F1 25 car setup

With the fundamentals out of the way, I’m going to dive into the process of creating a car setup. I’ll first run through my own checklist, and order that I approach car setups. Then I’ll dive in to each step in more detail.

Below is the process I use to create a car setup

1. Make fundamental changes to brakes and differential.
2. Set a benchmark lap time to compare to, and note down tyre temperatures after a 5 lap stint.
3. Make initial aerodynamic changes and tyre pressure changes.
4. Perform a second 5 lap stint to compare the car’s balance, speed and recheck the tyre temperatures.
5. Make suspension setup changes.
6. Perform a third 5 lap stint to check balance, stability and performance.
7. Make suspension geometry changes.
8. Perform a fourth 5 lap stint to check car’s performance, and recheck tyre temperatures.
9. Adjust the differential and tyre pressures if required.
10. Perform a final 5 lap stint to test the entire car’s handling, balance and performance.
11. Repeat the steps above if further setup tweaks are required until you’re happy.

Top tips when creating a car setup

Before I jump into every step in detail, and what to change etc. I want to touch on a few key tips I always use.

Use practice to create car setups

The first is to always create a car setup in a Grand Prix practice session. This will better replicate the weather and track conditions compared to time trial mode. I typically like to create setups during practice 2 as they offer the closest conditions to the race.

You can alternatively manually set the start time for each session before heading into the Grand Prix weekend to ensure more consistency across sessions.

Always use the same tyres

The downside of using a practice session to create a setup is the variable tyre wear. I’d recommend creating a setup on the medium tyre, unless you have a specific reason for using the hard and soft. You can then use a few sets of medium tyre in a session before running out of new tyres.

In that situation, I’ll save my setup and simply restart the session, which gives you fresh rubber to work with. Then, simply continue where you left off.

Only make one setup change at a time

When making changes to your setup, I normally always stick to the rule of only a single setup adjustment at once. This ensures that you can feel the consequence of that adjustment. If its good stick with it, its its bad, then you can simply roll back as you know exactly what caused the problem.

You start to run into issues when making multiple adjustments at once of not knowing which adjustment caused the good or bad change in handling. The only real exception to this rule is during my initial setup process, where I’ll adjust the brake setup and differential together. Or if certain setup options are linked such as front and rear suspension etc.

Step 1: Initial adjustments

Now jumping into the process of creating a car setup, the first thing I always do is some quick general adjustments. I always set the brake pressure is set to 100%, brake bias is set around 54-55%, and the differential is set to 75 for on throttle, and 30-40% off throttle.

These are changes that apply to most setups, and bring the values into the rough ballpark of where they’ll probably end up.

Then, head out on a practice run of at least 5 laps. Although you can run longer to get more of a feel for the car. During this stint, we’re checking a few things. First, how the car feels and handles, and second, check the tyre temperatures to see if they’re cold or hot. Always write down the tyre temperatures from this first run.

Step 2: Aerodynamic changes

The first real part of the set up I dial in is the aerodynamics. This is often the most impactful part of your setup as it dictates your overall downforce levels and speed on the straights. As a general rule of thumb, fast tracks with long straights like Monza and Spa-Francorchamps should have a low aero setup. Tracks that are slower and twisty like Monaco and Hungary should have really high aero setups.

You can also use the aero balance from front to back to start altering the understeer and oversteer balance of the car. Use the tips below to balance your car with the aero.

• Car understeering: Increase the front wing or reduce the rear wing
• Car oversteering: Increase the rear wing or reduce the front wing
• Too slow on straights: Decrease both front and rear wing (the rear wing has a more significant impact on top speed)
• Too slow around corners: Increase both front and rear wing aero

You will often find that having slightly more front wing angle is beneficial as it will help reduce understeer, and rotate the car into corners better. However, at some tracks where rear stability is key, like COTA and Miami for example can benefit from a high rear wing to ensure the rear of the car stays stable.

To guage how high you set your aero, you can always try following other AI cars, or checking the monitor in the pits to check on speed trap speeds.

Then, before heading out for another 5 lap stint on fresh tyres, you should adjust the tyre pressures based on your reading from your first run. If your tyres are cold, reduce the pressure, and increase it if your tyres are getting too hot.

Below is a quick guide for the tyre temperatures you should be aiming for.

• Ideal tyre temperatures in F1 24: 85°C – 105°C
• Tyres colder than 85°C: They won’t produce enough grip. Decrease tyre pressures
• Tyres hotter than 105°C: They will overheat and wear faster. Increase tyre pressures

Step 3: Suspension changes

After performing a second stint, head back in to the pits to start adjusting the suspension setup. This is an important part of your setup which affects your car’s responsiveness, as well as its overall balance.

There are three areas we can make adjustments. The front and rear suspension, front and rear anti-roll bars (ARBs), and the front and rear ride height.

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Starting with the suspension setup, this really affects stability, mechanical grip and responsiveness in general, as well as stability over kerbs. You’ll often see setups with really stiff front suspension, and softer rear suspension. This is because the stiff front will aid with responsiveness, and a softer rear allows for better traction.

With the anti-roll bars, these affect your car’s behaviour as it leans through a corner. Stiffer ARBs will increase your car’s overall willingness to turn into a corner. However, through longer corners, stiff ARBs can cause instability as they become overloaded.

The trend of inverted ARBs stated mid-way through last year’s game cycle, and was really brought to the forefront by setup creator Gruhnd, and this trend has continued into F1 25. This idea gives you great responsiveness, while allowing the car to rotate without relying on a front and rear wing offset.

Finally, your ride height is pretty important with these ground effect F1 cars. Essentially, the lower to the ground you run, the more aero performance you’ll get. The sweet spot is to run as close as possible before the scraping along the ground starts limiting your top speed by causing too much drag.

You can also use rake i the ride height which is a higher rear ride height than front to help balance your car. A larger offset, or higher rake, will allow the car to rotate faster, but can cause excess rotation and oversteer if pushed too far.

Below are my top tips to remember when changing the suspension setup.

• Stiffer suspension will increase responsiveness at the cost of stability.
• Stiffer ARBs will improve responsiveness but add instability through longer corners.
• You can use your suspension and ARB to really tinker with understeer and oversteer.
• Run you ride height as low as possible before losing top speed via scraping.
• Stiffer suspension will let you run lower ride height.

I’d recommend making suspension changes independently of one another, as I mentioned earlier. This will improve your understanding of what each change has made. Although, while fine tuning, you can make changes to multiple areas such as suspension and ride height simultaneously as there is a direct correlation between the two.

After you’ve made your suspension changes and completed a few practice runs to the point where you’re happy, we can move onto the suspension geometry.

Step 4: Suspension geometry

The suspension geometry is one of the more complex areas of your setup. Although, to be honest, its the part of the setup you’ll probably spend the least amount of time adjusting. This is because, at almost all tracks, a suspension geometry setup of left, left, left, left is often king.

This is because the benefits of running more negative camber and toe really outweigh other routes. Despite this, I’ll explain both camber and toe a little, as you may want to make adjustments.

Camber

The camber setup affects how much your tyres lean in at the top. More negative camber will make them lean closer to your car. Adding negative camber, moving the setup to the left, will aid with mid-corner grip and performance. However, it can provide less grip while braking as less of the tyre will be in contact with the road while the car isn’t turning.

Toe

The toe affects how much the front tyres point away from your car at the front, and how much the front of the rear tyres points in. This is called toe out at the front, and toe in at the rear.

More toe out at the front of the car will provide more responsiveness and grip while turning into and through corners. More toe in at the rear will increase stability.

Due to the toe angling the tyres away from center, adding toe at either the front or rear will increase tyre temperature generation and tyre wear.

With all that said, you’ll probably end up running all left on your geometry, because its been the best route for years, and continues with F1 25. If you adjust anything, adding some rear toe can be beneficial when your searching for rear end stability.

After making any geometry setup changes, head out on another 5 lap stint. This time, once again, write or note down your tyre temperatures, as we will adjust them as part of the next step.

Step 5: Transmission changes

The next set of changes affects the transmission. This has been changed slightly for F1 25, with the removal of the engine braking setting from last year. We have two options, on throttle diff which affects how locked the rear wheels are when applying throttle. And off throttle diff which affects the differential when not applying any throttle.

On throttle differential

Generally, the on throttle differential will be set quite high, as this will provide a nice performance boost out of corners. Locking the differential, or increasing the setting in F1 25, will force both rear wheels to spin at closer speeds. This gives more grip out of corners, allowing for faster corner exit speeds. It does, however, add a bigger chance of wheel spin.

For this reason, you may want to lower the on throttle differential at slower tracks where traction is important. These are tracks such as Monaco and Brazil.

Off throttle differential

I often tailor the off throttle differential to allow the car to rotate better on corner entry. Lowering the off throttle diff will allow the car to rotate faster, although this can cause some lift instability on the approach to a corner. If you’re struggling with rear instability, try increasing the off throttle differential as one of your first changes.

Tyre pressures

Then, before heading out on track, refer to your tyre temperatures from your previous run. Once again, adjust them up or down if needed, using the same metric from step 2.

Then it’s all about testing and tinkering from here. If you are finding your car not performing optimally, you can revisit any of the steps above to make some tweaks.

Setup tips and handling fixes

To help out, I’ve gone through and listed a few common issues that you may find as you adjust your setup. I’ve included some possible fixes to help you better narrow down your adjustments.

• Car is too slow on straights:
  • Decrease front and rear wings
  • Reduce toe
  • Check ride height and that car isn’t scraping the track
• Too much oversteer out of corners:
  • Increase the rear wing
  • Increase the off throttle differential
  • Decrease the ride height rake
  • Soften front suspension
  • Soften rear ARB
  • Stiffen front ARB
  • Increase rear toe in
• Too much understeer into and through corners:
  • Decrease rear wing
  • Increase front wing
  • Decrease off throttle differential
  • Stiffen front suspension
  • Add more ride height rake
  • Soften front ARB
• Tyres too cold: Decrease pressures
• Tyres too hot: Increase pressures
• Front brakes are locking: Decrease brake bias
• Rear brakes are locking: Increase the brake bias

Gain an advantage with our pro F1 25 car setups

If creating a car setup isn’t your thing, or you’re having a hard time dialling in the perfect setup, we have you covered. Our Pro car setup and strategy pack for F1 25 includes multiple optimal car setups for every track in the game. You gain access to;

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Conclusion

Hopefully, this F1 25 setup guide has helped to understand various parts of the car setup. And, you should also end up with a car that now handles better than when you started, with faster lap times as well. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll reply where I can.

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Article written by Rich

Founder of SimRacingSetups.com

Rich is the founder, F1 car setup creator and content writer for SimRacingSetups. With over a decade of experience as a graphic designer, marketing director, competitive sim racer and avid motorsport fan, Rich founded SimRacingSetup.com to share his passion and knowledge of sim racing and Formula 1 with other sim racers. Regularly writes for sim racing website SimRaceReviews.com

View all articles written by Rich