How to Find the Perfect AI Difficulty in F1 25

Achieving the perfect balance of AI difficulty is crucial for an immersive and challenging experience in F1 25. Whether you’re a seasoned F1 sim racer or a newcomer to the series, tailoring the AI settings to match your skill level can significantly enhance your gameplay.

In this guide, I will show you how to find the ideal AI difficulty level for you in F1 25 on Xbox, PS5, and PC. Doing this will ultimately help you enjoy the game as much as possible, while making every racer challenging and rewarding.

Watch our video showing how to find the perfect AI difficulty

Why Should You Adjust The AI Difficulty in F1 25?

The AI difficulty setting in F1 25 directly affects the speed and performance of AI-controlled drivers during offline game modes, including My Team and Career. Racing with the default AI difficulty often won’t reflect your true skill level.

Tuning the AI difficulty in F1 25 is all about creating a balance based on your own preferences. Setting the AI difficulty too low, and races become unchallenging. Set it too high, and frustration sets in because of constant losses.

If you like to race at the front of the grid, no matter which car you’re racing, you may want to lower the difficulty so the game becomes a little easier. If you wish for more of a challenge, you can increase the AI difficulty beyond your skill level. This is often a great way to improve your own driving and skill level.

The ideal AI difficulty will allow for:

• Wheel-to-wheel racing battles
• Strategic overtakes
• Consistent competition across the grid
• Room for skill improvement

By fine-tuning the AI difficulty setting, you get a more immersive and rewarding experience tailored to your capabilities.

How to Change AI Difficulty in F1 25

Changing the AI difficulty in F1 25 is a simple process and should be done before starting a race as you cannot change it mid-race, or mid race weekend:

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Setup your race: Select your team, driver, and track as normal.
2. Locate the difficulty setting: Within the race setup options, you’ll find the AI difficulty slider.
3. Adjust the setting: Move the slider to set the difficulty from 0 (easiest) to 110 (most challenging).
4. Start the race: Confirm your changes and begin the session.

Important Note: AI difficulty settings cannot be changed mid-race, so it’s essential to make adjustments before starting any session.

Which AI difficulty is right for me in F1 25

F1 25 features a AI system where difficulty is measured on a scale from 0 to 110. Here’s a rough breakdown of what each range typically represents:

• 0-30: Very Easy – Ideal for absolute beginners.
• 31-60: Easy to Medium – Great for casual players.
• 61-85: Hard – Suitable for most intermediate racers.
• 86-110: Expert to Alien – Best for highly skilled or competitive players.

At 110 difficulty, AI drivers can outperform real-world F1 legends like Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. This level is typically used by top esports players.

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Using Our AI Difficulty Calculator

One of the quickest ways to find the best AI difficulty for you, is to use our difficulty calculator. This will use your fastest lap time at a track to recommend the ideal difficulty for you.

This is the quickest and often most accurate method for finding the best difficulty. All you need to do is set a lap in time trial, and then use our calculator.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Pick a track you are familiar with.
2. Complete a few clean laps to set your best time.
3. Record your fastest lap.
4. Use our F1 25 AI difficulty calculator to find the correct AI difficulty level based on your lap time.

Pro Tip: A difference of 1 second per lap typically equals 10 AI difficulty points. If you’re consistently 2 seconds slower than top AI drivers, try lowering the AI difficulty by 20 points.

One-Shot Qualifying: The Fastest Way to Test AI Difficulty

The One-Shot Qualifying mode offers a quick and accurate method to compare your speed with AI competitors.

Steps to follow:

1. Create a Grand Prix session with One-Shot Qualifying enabled.
2. Enter the difficulty recommended on our F1 25 AI difficulty calculator.
3. Complete the single-lap qualifying session.
4. Note your position and compare lap times.

What to look for:

• Pole or Front Row: Increase AI difficulty by 5-10 points.
• Midfield: You’re likely at the right level.
• Back of the Grid: Lower the difficulty by 5-10 points.

Repeat this process at different tracks to find an average difficulty setting.

Test Your AI Setting in a Full Race

After selecting a difficulty using Time Trial or Qualifying, put it to the test in an actual race. This is where you can test whether you have the right difficulty set, or whether you’ll need to make adjustments.

Why this matters:

• You can observe the AI’s racecraft.
• AI speed may differ in race conditions versus qualifying.
• You’ll see where AI drivers excel or lag (corners, straights, pit strategy).

If the AI cars pull away too quickly or can’t keep up, it’s time to make slight adjustments. Remember, race dynamics and AI behavior offer a broader insight than single-lap performance.

Learn from the AI to Improve

While racing wheel to wheel with the AI in a race, you can note where they are fast and slow, and learn from that. Generally, the AI speed is pretty accurate from corner to corner. So if they are faster than you at one corner, there is normally potential for you to improve your own pace.

Here’s how you can learn from racing against AI:

• Observe Braking Points: See where AI drivers brake and replicate it.
• Study Racing Lines: Follow their lines through corners to improve your consistency.
• Analyze Overtakes: AI tactics can teach you when and how to pass safely.

Racing with slightly faster AI can also help you raise your performance. Learning to follow and eventually beat these faster cars is a proven method of skill development.

Important Note: The AI Speed Varies By Track

AI performance in F1 25 isn’t uniform across all circuits. Some tracks favour the AI meaning they’ll outperform you, while other track may see weaker AI performance. This is a frustration with all F1 games, as the AI difficulty isn’t quite uniform across every track.

You will almost certainly need to make adjustments to the difficulty from race to race. This is why it’s ideal to check your AI difficulty using our F1 25 AI difficulty calculator before each race.

Examples:

• Jeddah: AI is relatively slow here. You can increase your AI difficulty.
• Monza & Brazil: AI performs exceptionally well. Consider lowering difficulty.

Below is a visual example of how the speed of the AI differs from track to track. Lower bars show where the AI is not as strong, while higher bars show where the AI performs well.

Solution:

Adjust your AI difficulty track-by-track. Keeping a log of each track’s AI difficulty can help you maintain consistent competitiveness throughout a season.

Suggested Approach:

• Start a Career Mode.
• Use One-Shot Qualifying at each track.
• Adjust AI difficulty accordingly.

AI Difficulty and Game Updates

F1 25 will receive multiple patches throughout its life cycle. These updates may include:

• Performance tweaks
• AI behaviour adjustments
• Physics updates

Any of these can affect how fast you or the AI perform. After major updates, revisit your AI difficulty settings. If you notice drastic changes in race outcomes, the update likely influenced AI competitiveness.

Stay Informed: Follow patch notes on the official EA Sports F1 site or community forums like Reddit.

Custom Career Mode AI Settings

When playing My Team or Career Mode, your goal may change throughout the season. For instance:

• Early Season: You may want a lower difficulty to ease into your career.
• Mid to Late Season: Increase difficulty as your car improves.

Progressive difficulty changes mimics real-world team development and keeps things interesting. You can change the AI difficulty before each race in a career mode, so feel free to play about with it. You can use this to slow the AI at tracks that you don’t perform as well at. It is common for F1 players to lower the AI difficulty at tricky tracks such as Monaco and Baku.

How to Balance AI Difficulty Over a Full Season

For a balanced Career Mode experience you can do the following:

1. Record AI difficulty settings per track.
2. Keep notes on lap times and race results.
3. Make gradual adjustments between races.
4. Use team development and rival performance as indicators.

Goal: Maintain a challenge while avoiding unrealistic dominance or poor performances.

Your AI Tuning Checklist

Here is a quick-reference checklist to help you manage AI difficulty in F1 25:

• Run Time Trial laps and record your best times.
• Use our F1 25 AI difficulty calculator or our recommended formula (1s = 10 points).
• Try One-Shot Qualifying at each track to test the difficulty level.
• Adjust AI per track if needed.
• Test your difficulty in full races.
• Observe and learn from AI behavior to improve your own pace.

Conclusion

Finding and adjusting the perfect AI difficulty in F1 25 can drastically improve your overall racing experience. Not only will you enjoy closer battles and more rewarding wins, but you’ll also accelerate your learning curve and become a better sim racer.

Whether you’re chasing podiums in My Team or battling through the midfield in Career Mode, regularly assessing and tweaking your AI settings ensures that every race feels competitive, immersive, and most importantly, fun.

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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