5 Tips How To Race Without ABS or Traction Control in F1 2019

ABS and traction control are two assists which are extremely helpful early on. If you have just started playing F1 2019 or are looking to pick it up soon, you will probably want to have both of these assists enabled.

What is ABS?

ABS is short for Anti-Lock Brakes and does exactly what it says on the tin. It allows you to press as hard as you want on the brake pedal without locking up the brakes. Typically in F1, when you press too hard on the brake pedal for too long your brakes will lock, causing your wheels to lock. Locked wheels will damage the tyres and cause you to overshoot a corner. You wont have as much stopping power when you’re trying to slow down.

What is Traction control?

Traction control is easily one of the most important driving assists in F1 2019. It is the assist which most players turn off last as it dramatically increases drive-ability out of corners. In a nutshell, traction control senses if your rear tyres are going to spin under acceleration. If your you apply too much throttle and your car thinks you are about to lose grip, traction control will kick in.

When traction control kicks in it limits the amount of power your are sending to your rear wheels, therefor stopping them from spinning. By stopping your tyres from spinning your car will be much easier to drive exiting corners and under acceleration.

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So now we’ve covered the fundamentals as to what both of these great assists do we will give you our top 5 tips for learning to drive with both of them disabled.

If you fancy reading other F1 tips, read our 7 ways to get the most out of F1 2019 career mode.

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Perfecting Your Braking Technique

Many people’s approach to braking when first learning a sim racing game such as F1 2019, is to brake as hard as possible until the car slows down enough. This sounds like it would technically slow your car down in the quickest possible way, however it wouldn’t. If you braked in this manner without ABS enabled, your brakes and wheels would lock as soon as you get to a slow enough speed.

Instead of this approach you should look to learn the two most commonly used braking techniques; pump braking and trial braking.

What is Trial Braking?

Trial braking is possibly the most commonly used form of braking in most simulation racing games including F1 2019. The goal with trial braking is to slow the car in the fastest way without locking your wheels.

To start, when approaching a corner you want to apply the brakes at 100% pressure or as hard as you can. This will apply maximum braking force in to the car.

Then as you gradually start to slow down you want to release the pressure on the brake pedal slowly. Don’t release the pressure to fast otherwise you wont slow the car down enough and will miss the corner. Instead gently ease off of the brakes as your car drops below 120mph.

You will want to be slowly releasing the pressure on the brake pedal all the way up until the apex of the corner, where you will release the brake pedal entirely.

Timing when trial braking in F1 is crucial. Brake too late, and release the brake pedal pressure too late and you will lock your wheel, as mentioned above. Do the opposite and brake too early releasing the brake pressure too early will lose you a lot of time.

What is Pump Braking?

Pump braking is an alternative method to trial braking if you find trial braking doesn’t match your driving style. Essentially pump braking requires you to pump the brakes to slow the car down without locking the wheels.

Similar to trial braking you will want to apply 100% brake pressure as you arrive at a corner. Then, at a similar sort of time as you would start to trial brake you should release the brake pressure to around 50%. Quickly then reapply pressure to about 70-80% and repeat. You should release the brake pedal entirely once you reach the apex and correct corner speed. Then drive off in to the distance with a smile on your face knowing you’ve mastered pump braking.

This technique is in our opinion more difficult to master than trial braking in F1 2019. It is very easy to apply too much brake pressure, which would cause your wheels to lock up. Again it’s easy to apply too little brake pressure and miss the corner entirely.

We would recommend you try both of these techniques, trying trial braking first. If trial braking feels natural to you then continue with this technique. It is the most popular braking technique for a reason!

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Applying The Correct Throttle Pressure

One of the hardest elements of driving these turbo F1 cars is mastering throttle application whilst exiting corners. It is oh so easy to apply too much throttle and light up the rear wheels. This can sometimes result in a spin, will always damage the tyres, and will almost always lose you time.

Learning to apply the correct amount of throttle pressure at the right points throughout a corner is the key to mastering driving without traction control off.

The easiest way to learn this technique is to drive very cautiously accelerating out of each corner. When you start to round a corner and think about accelerating start to apply the throttle in the opposite way you apply the brake in trial braking.

Apply very little pressure to start with and gradually increase the pressure. By the time you are in a perfectly straight line and in 4th or 5th gear you should be applying 100% throttle pressure. This will give you a good starting point to be able to accelerate out of every corner without issue.

How To Use This Technique To Improve Lap Time

You can then start to increase the speed at which you apply more throttle pressure. Certain corners on the grid you can attack very aggressively and get on to the power quickly. These are generally higher speed corners which require much less time before you can apply full throttle. Some, normally slower corners such as the hairpin in Canada, require you to continue to be delicate on the throttle on exit.

This will quickly become second nature and you will be doing this technique naturally. If you attack a corner too hard and spin up your rear tyres, remember which corner it was and feather the throttle slower next time around. Also if you get absolutely no wheel spin coming out of some corners, you may be able to attack them with more force and accelerate earlier next time. It is truly a measure of practice and learning the tracks.

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Braking in a Straight Line

One of the most fundamental elements of avoiding locking up your wheels when braking in F1 2019  is to ensure your car is in a straight line when applying the brakes.  This is because when you apply turning force whilst still applying braking force the loads become unbalanced.

If you turn in to a corner it forces the weight of your car to one side of the car. This reduces the amount of weight and pressure on the inside tyre, essentially making it lighter. Because this wheel is now lighter it will be much more likely to lock up.

You should try to limit your inputs to one at a time. Ensure you are braking as hard as you can in a straight line before the corner apex, and then once you are at the apex, release the brake and apply your turning input. This is the smoothest way to drive most tracks.

If you are using the trial braking method mentioned above you can start turning whilst you still have light braking pressure applied. This is generally the method you will use around most corners. Practice this technique combined with trial braking to get a good feel for what sort of forces cause you to lock up.

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Short Shifting On Corner Exit

If you are still struggling on certain corners, especially slower corners when your in lower gears you should look to start short shifting. This is a technique that is widely used to improve both traction and lap times.

When you are exiting a slow corner in a lower gear, it is much easier for the engine to increase revs quicker. The speed of this rev increase can sometimes make you run in to the revline in lower gears which makes your rear tyres spin much quicker than the fronts. This is what causes drivers to spin out.

By shifting quicker than usual in lower gears, known as short shifting will stop the rear wheels spinning up faster than the fronts. This will give you better all round traction and will allow you to accelerate harder and quicker than if you run the revs right to the top of the rev range and spin your tyres.

This is a nice technique to learn, especially for exiting on slow corners, and can also be particularly helpful in wet conditions.

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Maintain Your Adaptability

All of the techniques above will help you learn to brake and accelerate in to and out of most corners much more consistently with less lock ups and less wheel spin. However every track, and every corner is different so you wont be able to use one single technique everywhere.

You will find on most tracks there are corners where you are slightly turning on entry or accelerating on an exit corner. You will have to remember the overall techniques above and adapt them to each and every corner.

Turn 9 at the Bahrain track is a prime example of this and is possibly one of the hardest corners to master on the whole F1 calendar. The approach to this corner is on a bend forcing you to turn whilst braking. This means you need to strike a perfect balance in turn in angle and braking force to avoid locking the wheel.

The Bahrain Turn 9 Problem Addressed

You can approach this corner from a wide line, turning the car in slightly then braking heavily in a straight line for a short while. Then as you are forced to apply more turning input you will have to dramatically reduce the amount of braking pressure you are applying.

On the exit of this corner you will be travelling very slowly so you’ll also have to apply your best short shifting and throttle application technique. This corner really does test even the best drivers, and will always be a cause of wheel lock ups.

In short, you have to really pay attention to your entire surroundings and every tracks corners as no two will be the same. You will have to use different combinations of all of the above techniques in varying situations throughout your F1 2019 journey.

And remember to try not to get frustrated. Even the best online league racers lock up their wheels, and will spin their tyres on acceleration some times. You simply have to try and learn the tracks, and understand the reason as to why you made a mistake. Then next time around that particular corner you will be better equipped with the knowledge which will help you enter and exit it without any drama!

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