Assists in F1 23 can really help to make the game more accessible. You can enable and disable any of the assists to create your own custom assists. In this guide, I'l run through every assist in F1 23, showing which assists you should enable.
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Assists are a great tool in F1 23. They can help make the game more accessible and can in many ways make you faster by reducing some complexity or helping you learn the game faster. However, if you are an experienced sim racer, enabling assists will almost certainly make you slower in F1 23.
All racing games feature a range of driver assists and aids designed to assist players of all skill levels and make the game more accessible. F1 23 is no different and includes various assists that can help make the notoriously difficult 2023 Formula 1 cars easier to drive.
In this guide, I’ll run through every assist in F1 23, and show you which I would recommend turning on and which should be turned off right away.
Assists are a feature of F1 23 that gives players a range of driver aids to make driving the powerful Formula 1 cars much easier. Assists include strong driver aids such as steering or braking assist, down to more subtle assists that can manage features such as ERS and the pit limiter.
These should be used to help make the cars easier to drive, or F1 23 more enjoyable. Once you have spent enough time in game, you may be able to turn some assists off which will make F1 23 more immersive and realistic.
Turning assists off in F1 23 can be done from the main menu or the in-game pause menu at any time, even mid-race. Follow the steps below to enable or disable any assists in F1 23.
Many of the assists are designed to make the cars easier to drive and not make you faster. Because the game will be taking over some of the functions or processes for you, this will limit your maximum pace.
If you are struggling with a certain part of F1 23 such as locking your brakes, for example, enabling the ABS assist can make you more consistently faster.
However, if you already have a good amount of experience in F1 23 and can race without assists enabled, turning them off will give you the potential to become faster. When competing for outright pace in F1 23, turning assists off will make you faster.
Below is an explanation of each individual assist in F1 23.
The driving proficiency assist is a range of presets for you to choose from. Changing this will automatically enable and disable each assist to give you a range of beginner, professional or custom options.
The steering assist is an assist that I would always recommend disabling. It assists your steering taking away the need to manually steer your way around the lap.
You will be left to handle the braking and accelerating while the game will take control of your steering. This is a major assist and will almost always slow you down, but is very helpful for those with accessibility requirements.
The braking assist is similar to the steering assist in that it will take away a core element of driving the car. This assist will control your brakes so you just need to handle the steering and acceleration.
This assist is very conservative and won’t push the limits of the braking zones. This makes this a slow assist to use and will limit your potential to put in fast lap times.
Again, I would always recommend turning this assist off to get the most enjoyment out of F1 23.
Your anti-lock brakes (ABS) is a useful assist that helps manage the braking in F1 23. ABS is often used in road cars and some motorsport series, but it isn’t used in Formula 1.
When braking heavily, it is possible in F1 23 to lock a wheel causing it to skid or slide across the track. ABS kicks in to prevent this from happening. ABS alters your brake pressure when it detects that a wheel is about to lock.
This assist can slow you down a little bit, although if you aren’t comfortable braking in F1 23, it can help you focus on other parts of your driving.
Traction control is another assist that is common in road cars and other forms of motorsport. It works to produce a similar result as ABS but focused entirely on your rear traction. Traction control kicks in when it detects that your rear wheels are about to lose traction or start spinning.
Traction control will reduce your throttle pressure to prevent as much power being sent to your wheels which in turn prevents them from spinning. Much like ABS, traction control will slow you down compared to not using it, but can be very useful to help manage wheelspin which is very common in F1 23.
In F1 23 there is a new drift assist settings which you can enable or disable. This is designed to lower the amount of the throttle that is applied when the rear of the car starts to slide.
The new drift assist will automatically reduce the throttle input when a certain angle of drift is reached. This will make the car easier to control while sliding and should result in less spins.
It is important to note that the F1 23 drift assist is only present in the Pirelli Hot Lap Drift Challenges, and doesn’t have any affect while racing Formula 1 cars.
The dynamic racing line is a great assist for when you’re racing a track for the first time or looking to improve. The racing line will show an overlay on the track which will change from green to orange and red guiding you on when to brake and accelerate as well as where on track to position your car.
The type of racing line can be changed from 3D to 2D which will change how it appears on the track. The 2D racing line will be projected onto the track ahead, while the 3D line floats above the track and raises up and down as you approach it. You may have a preference for one over the other.
New to F1 23 is a new type of racing line called the hi-vis racing line. This will make the dynamic racing line appear more visible which will help especially in wet weather conditions.
The gearbox assist is the assist that lets you change between automatic and manual gears in F1 23. Driving with manual gears can represent a big challenge compared to automatic gears, but it is more realistic.
Read our guide on how to learn to drive in F1 23 with manual gears.
You can also set to use manual gears with a suggested gear overlay. This gives you full manual control over your gear changes but will show a suggested gear. This helps you learn which gear you need to be in at various points around a lap. It’s very helpful for making the transition between automatic and manual gears.
The pit assist will take over control of your car on the approach to the pit lane. Each pit lane in F1 23 has a maximum speed limit. And you need to be travelling at this speed limit before crossing the pit lane line otherwise you’ll receive a penalty.
The pit assist in F1 23 will automatically slow your car down on the approach to ensure you can’t receive this penalty. It will also control the process of turning into your pit box, again taking away control over your turn-in and timing.
The pit release assist will take control as soon as your pitstop is complete. It will automatically drive your car out of your pit box and maintain control until you cross the pit lane line and reenter the track.
The Best F1 24 Racing WheelsDisabling this pit release assist in F1 23 will force you to manually accelerate out of your own pit box which is similar to a race start.
The ERS assist will take full control over the ERS (engine recovery system). ERS can be changed mid-race to give you different amounts of power during different phases of a Grand Prix.
During a race you can change your ERS mode to give you more power for an overtake or to defend, or less power to recover your battery. This assist will control this function for you and will set the best ERS mode for the session you’re in.
This is an assist that will almost always make you slower as you won’t have control over when to deploy your ERS. This is something that can be changed 10+ times each lap by the fastest sim racers.
DRS (drag reduction system) is a feature that opens up a gap in your rear wing at specific parts of a lap. This will reduce the amount of drag that your car faces and will give you higher top speeds.
You can activate DRS at any DRS zone at any point during a practice or qualifying session (unless it’s raining). But in a race, you can only activate DRS when you are within a second of the car in front.
Activating DRS can give you a top-speed advantage to make an overtake. Turning on DRS assist will simply stop you from having to manually activate it, and it will automatically control the activation for you.
This isn’t an overly impactful assist as DRS is just a simple button press. But it can be one less thing to think about each lap, allowing you to focus on other areas of your driving.
The best assists in F1 23 will always differ from person to person. Some may find traction control more useful than ERS assist for example while others may prefer to automate some systems such as DRS and shifting while turning ABS and traction control off. It really is person dependent.
Some of the more useful assists are automatic gears for those who don’t fancy changing gears hundreds of times each lap. Traction control can also be incredibly effective in F1 23 because it can be very hard to accelerate without spinning the wheels due to the lack of rear downforce in the new era of Formula 1 cars.
I would always recommend turning off the brake and steering assist almost right away as these take away so much control in F1 23.
Keeping on assists such as the racing line can help you become faster and learn tracks quicker, while traction control and ABS can make the cars in F1 23 easier to drive.
I’d recommend turning assists off one by one as you get more comfortable with different areas of the game. Start by disabling or lowering assists such as traction control and ABS, before moving on to changing the gearbox assist to manual and disabling the racing line.
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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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