F1 23 China Car Setup: Best Race Setup

One of the best things Codemasters did with F1 23 is include three bonus tracks. China, France and Portugal all found themselves off the official calendar this year, but all are brilliant circuits in their own right. So it’s great to see each one playable in F1 23.

First up in this bunch of bonus tracks is China, and this is a circuit which has been up there as one of my favourites for over a decade. It features an extremely fun middle sector, combined with a very unusual first corner sequence, and one of the longest straights in Formula 1.

This unique combination makes the track enjoyable to drive, but tricky to create a car setup for. Do you opt for low downforce to prioritise that huge straight, at the expense of downforce through the first and second sector. And how much do you cater your car setup for tyre wear, which due to the sustained corners can be harsh around China.

Watch our F1 23 China car setup video

Aerodynamic setup

So lets jump in to the aero setup and see what approach I took. I’ve gone with an aero setup slap bang in the middle with 28 on the front and just 23 on the rear.

This is designed to target front downforce, whilst also giving us decent straight line speed. The higher front aero allows the front of the car to stick well through the long corners such as turn 1 and 2 as well as the fast turns 7 and 8.

You will have to watch the rear of your car when exiting turn 12, as it can get a little loose if you accelerate too hard. If this is a real problem, I’d suggest lowering the front aero setup to bring more balance towards the rear. However, this will cause you to lose a bit of time through sectors 1 and 2.

Transmission setup

For the transmission setup, I’ve opted for a 50-50 approach. I’ve set both the on throttle and off throttle diff to 50%. This allows you to get the power down without too much trouble from the rear of the car. And the low off throttle differential really helps rotate the car into turns 6 and 14.

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Suspension Geometry

For the geometry setup, I’ve gone with an old school approach of right, right, left, left. This really puts a focus on minimising drag and increasing our straight line speed.

Suspension setup

The suspension setup follows most F1 23 setups with a stiff front of the car and much softer rear. This promotes a pointy front end that will happily turn into corners while the rest of the car remains compliant.

Go with 32 and 10 on the suspension setup. Then opt for a pretty high front anti-roll bar of 13, with just 3 at the rear. For the ride height opt for 34 and 38.

Brake setup

Then for the brake setup, set the pressure to 100% and the brake bias to 56%. You can really get away with a higher brake bias around China due to the heavy braking zones. It may be beneficial to manually lower the brake bias once you exit turn 6, and turn it back up again just before turn 14.

Tyre setup

Now for the tyre setup, I’ve gone with a pretty standard setup that is slightly on the lower side. Set the front pressures to 22.7psi and both rear pressures to 20.3psi. Tyre wear is pretty even all around with this approach.

Overview

And that completes our Chinese car setup for F1 23. This track is always fun to drive, but does provide quite a challenge in a few different ways. The exit of turn 13 is without a doubt the hardest part of the track to master.

But a gentle approach on the throttle and good discipline to not accelerate too early will see you through the race nicely.

Enjoy this setup and I’ll see you on track.

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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