F1 24: 5 Top Tips To Being Faster in Wet Weather

While learning to race F1 24 without assists, especially traction control is one of the toughest challenges in this year’s Formula 1 game. Driving in wet weather has to be up there in terms of difficulty.

When the sky opens and rain begins to fall, you will suddenly find you have much less grip at all areas around a lap. You will have to be much more gentle on your throttle and brake inputs and generally carry less speed through corners.

While driving in wet conditions in F1 24 can be tricky, our top tips will help make it much easier. In this guide, I’ll run through our recommendations and tips for making driving in wet weather easier.

How does rain affect grip in F1 24

Your levels of grip with any tyre in F1 24 is dictated by the rubber of your tyres and the contact patch with the track. The more tyre surface in contact with the track, in theory, the more grip you’ll have.

When it starts to rain, the water on the track surface creates a barrier between your tyre surface and the track. This greatly reduces the amount of mechanical grip you’ll have, especially if it starts raining while using soft, medium, or hard tyres.

Wet weather and intermediate tyres have grooves to help dissipate the standing water. The grooves create channels for the water to escape into, meaning the remaining rubber on your tyre can create a better contact patch with the track surface.

The problem with wet tyres is that due to the grooves, there is much less rubber in contact with the track. This will still mean that even with special wet weather tyres, you’ll have much less grip than a dry track.

How to brake in wet weather

One of the biggest ways that wet weather impacts your car’s behaviour is under braking. In dry conditions, you’ll want to brake as hard as you can for as long as you can.

In wet conditions, the lack of grip will mean you’ll have to brake much earlier than normal. It also increases the risk of locking a wheel due to the decreased grip levels. Adjusting how you brake will combat this.

Brake earlier and with less pressure

The key to successful braking in wet weather in F1 24 is to brake earlier than normal and with much less pressure. Instead of applying 100% brake input at the start of the braking zone, in wet conditions, you may only be able to apply a portion of this.

The more it is raining, the less brake input you’ll be able to apply before you lock a wheel. As your car slows down, you’ll have to decrease your brake input, much like you would in dry conditions.

Cadence braking

If you want to really maximise your braking ability in wet conditions, you can try an advanced technique called cadence braking. This is hard to pull off but can improve your braking efficiency when done right.

To cadence brake, you start applying a lot of brake pressure, then reduce the pressure just before locking your wheel. Then, right away, increase the pressure back up again before once again releasing it.

This will create a see-saw motion on the brake pedal. By repeating this process quickly, you are able to apply a lot of brake pressure while not worrying as much about locking a wheel.

This is a risky technique and can be hard to execute correctly, so I wouldn’t advise it as your first option when facing wet weather for the first time. However, over time, with a lot of practice, it can become a very powerful way of improving your wet lap times.

Brake setup

Adjusting your brake setup is one way to manage your braking efficiency in the rain. In particular, adjusting your brake bias from your MFD when the rain starts to fall can help reduce lockups.

Your brake bias is what dictates how much braking force gets sent to the front and rear axles. In dry conditions, you should have this around 55-58% towards the front. This will allow for the most efficient braking as the front brakes are more powerful than the rears.

In wet conditions, a front-focused brake bias will put more load through your front tyres and can result in easier lockups. Moving your brake bias slightly rearward can reduce the amount of front pressure, and reduce the likelihood of a lockup.

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You have to be careful with this setting, as too much rear bias can cause instability during braking. A value of around 54% is probably as far rearward as I’d recommend.

How to accelerate better in the rain

While braking is undoubtedly tougher in the rain, so is accelerating. If you are driving without traction control, managing your wheelspin when accelerating in the rain can be tricky. The lack of grip will cause your rear wheels to spin much more frequently.

Manage your throttle input

You will have to manage the amount of throttle input you apply. Reducing your throttle inputs will reduce the chance of breaking traction, resulting in less wheel spin.

Short shifting

Short shifting is the technique of changing gears before reaching the optimal rev range. This will cause less power to be sent to the rear wheels, making it harder to wheel spin.

During wet conditions, it can be beneficial to short shift at almost every corner until you are confident that you are travelling fast enough not to spin your wheels. I previously recommended short shifting in our guide on how to drive without traction control in F1 24. A lot of what I mentioned in that guide is also relevant here.

On-throttle differential

Much like your brake bias, your on-throttle differential can really help you lower your chances of spinning your wheels. Your on-throttle diff determines how much freedom each rear wheel has in relation to the other.

Lowering your on-throttle diff setup opens up your differential, giving more freedom for both rear wheels to spin more independently of each other. This will make it easier to accelerate in wet conditions.

Thanks to new car setup changes in F1 24, you have more control than ever over your on-throttle differential. View our recommended F1 24 car setups for every track for the best wet and dry setups.

Car setup changes

I spoke earlier in this guide about brake bias and differential setup changes to help manage traction and grip. You can also change other parts of your car setup to increase your grip.

If you know you are facing a wet race in F1 24, you can make some setup changes ahead of time to give you an easier-to-control car. Below are some key setup changes you can make to improve your car’s stability and grip.

• Increase your aerodynamics
  More front and rear wing aero will increase your downforce which is very helpful in wet conditions. Boosting your dry aero setup by 4 or 5 points is a good start when creating a wet setup. You can increase this further depending on the severity of the rain.
• Soften your suspension
  Stiffer suspensions can be more responsive but promote oversteer. A softer suspension will result in a more stable car.
• Lower differential setup
  Decreasing the on-throttle differential will make accelerating much easier in the rain.
• Lower brake pressure
  Decreasing the brake pressure makes it easier to apply more brake input without overwhelming the brakes as much.

Deciding which wet tyres to use

F1 24 can throw some pretty unpredictable weather into a race thanks to the dynamic weather model. You could find yourself starting on dry tyres but having to change to wet tyres mid-way through a race.

When this happens, knowing when to change from dry to wet tyres and which tyres to swap to is important. You can lose a lot of lap time from pitting multiple times if you get your tyre strategy wrong. Or you can gain a lot of positions if you predict the weather right.

Deciding which wet tyre to use

Choosing which tyre to use comes down to knowing the difference between the intermediate and full wet tyres.

Knowing when to pit to change to wet tyres

If you predict which lap to pit on, you can save yourself a pit stop compared to having to pit multiple times if you make the wrong choice. Switching straight from dry to full wet tyres in heavy rain can save you a pit stop compared to switching from dry to intermediate and then intermediate to full wet.

There are a few factors that will decide when is the right time to change tyres;

• The level of grip you currently have
• The forecast for the incoming weather
• Your tyre temperatures

The ultimate decision to pit comes down to whether you believe you’ll be faster on wet or intermediate tyres compared to the tyres you’re currently on. If you are losing multiple seconds each lap due to being on dry tyres on a wet track, it would be worth pitting and changing tyres.

You can use your own pace as well as the other cars around you to judge when to pit. If you see cars ahead pitting, it will generally be the right time to pit. You can also pay attention to the DRS. If DRS activation has been disabled, the track is considered wet, which indicates it is a good time to pit.

5 Top tips for being faster in the rain in F1 24

Below is a round up of our top tips to becoming faster in wet weather in F1 24.

Gain more control by using a racing wheel and pedals

Driving F1 24 with a controller can be a fun and relaxing way to race. Kicking your feet up on the couch after a long day sounds ideal. However, using a controller doesn’t provide as much control as a racing wheel and pedal set can. If you are considering upgrading to a racing wheel, know that it can help you apply more precise inputs in wet weather.

View our recommended racing wheels for F1 24 in our buyer’s guide.

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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