Baku, Azerbaijan is host to a strange F1 track. It's home to the longest straight of the year, and one of the tightest sectors all year. Meaning it requires a perfectly balanced car setup.
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Baku was host to an exciting Grand Prix this year, with tyre wear, and tyre failures being the deciding factor and big talking point of the weekend. It was a race which saw the championship leader, Verstappen crash out of the lead, and his team-mate Sergio Perez take his first GP win as a Red Bull driver.
In F1 2021, the Baku GP can be just as exciting to race at. The extremely long pit straight provides a huge overtaking opportunity, as do a few other long straights throughout the lap.
There are a lot of 90 degree point and squirt corners which require a relatively stiff and stable car, as well as good traction to ensure you get the best exit on to the longish straights.
Then there is the super tight and technical castle section, which features a tight up hill sequence of corners. This requires both bravery and a car with a solid amount of downforce to master.
This setup aims to bridge the gap between stability and top speed, ultimately giving you a great and stable race orientated setup.
Jumping straight in to the aero setup, I’ve gone with a lower front wing, and a higher rear wing for strong rear stability through the faster corners.
You don’t need as much front downforce at Baku, as this will cause excess drag down the straights and you can compensate for the lack of front downforce in other areas of the setup.
Go for 5 at the front and 7 at the rear of the car.
Baku is a track where medium speed corners are king, meaning other than a few corners, there aren’t too many heavy traction zones. This allows us to push the on-throttle diff up to 82. This will allow you to have a good amount of outright traction when accelerating out of the 90 degree corners and on to the straights.
Then, lower your off-throttle differential to 57 to give your car a little more rotation into the slower castle section.
Our suspension geometry at Baku is similar to the setup we used at Monaco. It will give you a good amount of balance by utilising higher amounts of front camber, and lower rear camber and toe.
Go for -2.7 and -1.4 on the camber setup. And 0.07 and 0.23 on the toe. We haven’t run the minimum amount of toe which would have helped with less drag down the straights, just so we get a bit more performance and stability through the tighter sections of track.
Then, moving on to the suspension setup, I’ve utilised a soft front suspension to allow the car to ride the kerbs with less stability loss. Then gone for a stiffer rear suspension to give the car rigidity through the faster corners.
Go for 2 and 5 on the suspension setup.
Then on the anti-roll bars opt for a stiffer setup at 7 and 6. The inverted nature of the anti-roll bars will give your car a little bit more stability around the lap.
Finally, go for 3 and 6 on the ride height to give enough clearance over the kerbs and elevation changes around Baku.
For your Baku brake setup in F1 2021, go for 97% pressure, which is a common setup option for me in F1 2021. And 57% on your brake bias.
There are a few heavier braking zones which require a solid brake balance. Moving the brake bias more forward at 57% will help reduce overall stopping distance, and the slightly lower than 100% brake pressure should aleviate any brake locking situations.
The Best F1 24 Racing WheelsTyres were the biggest talking point after this year’s Baku Grand Prix. Despite Baku being a very different track to Monaco, we’ve gone with a relatively similar approach to the tyre pressures.
Opt for softer front tyres at 21.8, and higher pressured rear tyres at 22.3. This will give you the best performance combined with tyre life across a race weekend, and the lower pressure front tyres will help soften the front of your car a little.
And that’s our Baku setup guide for F1 2021.
This setup should give you enough top speed potential to make overtaking during the race possible, without comprimising too much on overall drive-ability and stability.
View all of our most recent F1 2021 setups, by visiting our F1 2021 car setups page.
See you on track guys.
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Rich is the co-founder, and one of the main F1 setup creators and content writers 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
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