F1 24: How To Get Faster. Top Tips To Improve Your Lap Times

With the introduction of the new generation of Formula 1 cars a few years ago, the F1 games seemed to get a bit harder. The new cars are heavier than before and have less low-speed grip, which leads to more understeer and oversteer.

EA Sports has also tweaked the F1 24 handling physics a fair bit to make this years game feel even trickier to drive than last year. Mastering the new style of driving takes time, but with a few tips and techniques, you can get a head start to being faster.

We have compiled our top tips on how to become faster in F1 24. Each of these tips should be implemented every time you race in F1 24. With practice and progression, you’ll soon be putting in faster lap times on the time trial leaderboard and fighting for wins against more challenging AI.

Learn the correct racing line

Our first tip is a pretty easy one on paper. If you watch a Formula 1 race, you’ll quickly notice that all drivers seem to follow each other in a train. This is because there is typically one line throughout any lap that is the fastest route. This is known as the racing line, and it is important to learn at every track.

Utilising the racing line means using the entire width of the track, which helps shorten corners and allows you to carry more speed.

Learning the optimal racing line for all 24 tracks on the F1 24 calendar may seem daunting. However, there is a fantastic driving assist in F1 24 that speeds up this process.

I would highly recommend enabling the dynamic racing line from the assists menu. This will highlight on track where to position your car, where to brake and when to start accelerating. Using this assist will give you a considerable head start in learning the ideal racing line at every track.

Over time, once you feel confident in where to position your car at a specific track, disable the racing line and start to use key markers and landmarks around the track as references on when to brake.

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Turn off assists

Following on from disabling the dynamic racing line, another way to become faster in F1 24 is to disable other assists. The driving assists in F1 24 are fantastic, allowing players and sim racers of all skill levels to jump in and enjoy racing the incredibly powerful Formula 1 cars without feeling overwhelmed.

However, while the assists are fantastic, they can certainly slow you down when you’re looking for lap time gains.

It’s worth saying that if you struggle with a certain element, such as applying traction without spinning your wheels. Enabling traction control will generally make you faster as the car will be easier to drive. But if you are comfortable with managing wheelspin and are searching for those extra tenths of a second, disabling an assist like traction control will give you the potential of becoming faster.

Assists like ABS and traction control are safety nets that step in and reduce your throttle and brake input when they detect you are about to spin your wheels or lock your brakes. The process of the assists stepping in limits your ultimate performance.

As you progress and improve your consistency, try disabling these assists one by one. You may be slower initially after disabling an assist, but with a bit of practice, you’ll quickly adapt and will have the potential of becoming faster.

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Improve your braking

I now want to look at a few driving techniques that can help you improve your lap times. The first area is to improve how you brake in F1 24. This is one of the key areas where drivers can gain lap times. Braking a split second later or carrying more speed into a corner will increase your minimum speed, which will lead to faster laps.

Before looking at tips on how to improve your braking in F1 24, it’s important to understand some key mistakes that can be made while braking.

• Braking too earlier
  Braking too early elongates the braking zone, which means you’ll travel at a slower speed than necessary.
• Not braking hard enough
  If you aren’t using your brakes to their full power, you’re sacrificing performance. You should brake as hard as you can without locking your wheels.
• Slowing down too much
  Braking too much and slowing down too much for the corner is an incredibly easy mistake. It results in slower corner speeds, which will lose your lap time.
• Not trail braking
  Trail braking is a term given to modulating your brake pressure and steering input together. It helps combat all of the mistakes mentioned above.

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Braking tip 1: Braking in a straight line

The first rule of efficient braking in F1 24 is to always brake in as straight a line as possible. If you brake while turning the steering wheel, you are more likely to lock a wheel and aren’t utilising all of your tyres’ grip to focus on braking.

This is because your tyres only have so much grip to give. When travelling straight, all of the grip can be used to slow the car.

While turning through a corner, you’ll want to be using as much of the grip as possible to carry speed through a turn. If you start turning whilst braking, you are taking some of the potential grip away from slowing your car.

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Braking tip 2: Don’t brake too late

The next tip is a very easy one to fall victim to, and that is to not brake too late. You may think that the best way to improve your braking is to brake later. This is true to some degree, however, overdoing this and braking too late will almost always slow you down.

Braking later means you may have to slow your car down further to make the apex of the corner. This will impact your corner exit speed as you’ll be travelling slower at the apex. This can make you slower down the next straight.

In motorsport and sim racing, you’ll often hear the phrase, slow in, fast out. This is usually the best option.

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Braking tip 3: Turn off ABS

As I mentioned earlier, the ABS assist is great for preventing lockups under braking. Avoiding locking a wheel requires you to manage your brake input as you progress through a braking zone. This can be very hard, especially if you are racing F1 24 with a controller.

While ABS is great, it can cost you some lap time. When you are learning to push the limits of your car and extract all performance, disabling ABS can give you a slight performance gain. You can play with your brake bias, moving it further rearwards if you find yourself locking a front wheel too often.

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Braking tip 4: Learning to trail brake

Trail braking is an advanced braking technique that involves modulating your brake pressure in tandem with your steering input. The theory is that you merge braking and steering to carry the highest amount of speed into a corner. When applied correctly, trail braking can also help you rotate your car into a corner.

So, how do you trail brake in F1 24? Below is a quick guide on how to implement this technique.

• Start by braking normally in a straight line.
• Before your tyres would start to lock up, start to gradually release the brake pedal to reduce pressure.
• At the same time, you start reducing your brake input and start turning in towards the corner.
• The more you reduce your brake pressure, apply more steering input.
• At the apex of the corner, you should have no more braking input applied, and should be turning at the maximum input required.
• On the corner exit, start to open up the steering and exit the corner like normal.

Trail braking isn’t easy to learn, but it does address most of the common mistakes when braking in F1 24. When implemented correctly, you will be able to brake later into a corner and carry more speed through each turn.

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Don’t be too aggressive with steering inputs

When it comes to consistency throughout a race in F1 24, your car relies heavily on stability. The more stable and balanced your car is, the harder you can push it and the more consistent you’ll be. This is one of the keys to a successful race.

An easy mistake to make, which will upset the car’s balance, is being too aggressive with your steering inputs. Throwing your car into a corner aggressively will cause the weight balance to shift quickly and can cause your car to become loose or unstable.

This is a common mistake that can lead to oversteer and even spins. An aggressive driving style can also cause your tyres to work harder and cause higher tyre wear.

Try to keep all of your steering inputs smooth and avoid corrections mid-corner. The best route is to turn into a corner once and avoid jerky steering inputs.

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Improve your overtaking technique

While improving your driving style will lead to faster lap times and better qualifying positions. During a race, you will almost always be required to overtake some cars.

Overtaking requires you to beat another driver in a one-on-one duel. This can take some finesse as well as the ability to outwit your opponent. The last thing you want to be is predictable, as the driver in front may then be able to learn your technique and counteract it. Try to master a few of the different overtaking techniques below.

Choosing to overtake on the inside or outside of the corner

On the approach to a corner, you have a couple of options. Do you go for the inside of the corner, which is normally the easier option of executing an overtake? Or do you opt for the outside line? Both of these options have there upsides.

Positioning your car on the inside of a turn can prevent the other driver from taking the best line through the corner. This is often the easiest approach as you can dictate the position of the other car based on where you position yours.

It is common for the car ahead to block the inside of a corner, leaving the outside of the turn vulnerable. Overtaking on the outside of a corner can be more challenging as you may run out of room on the track.

However, this move is excellent for faster corners. Using the outside of the turn, you may be able to carry more speed through the turn, giving you a better exit than your opponent.

The up-and-under move

If you are forced to the outside of a corner, you may know that you cannot simply drive around the other car. They may block the track or push you out wide. Instead, in these scenarios, you can try a move called the up and under.

This move involves you initially positioning your car on the outside line and braking slightly harder than the other driver. Just after the corner apex, you can switch to the inside of the other car and get a better exit.

When executed just right, you will be able to out drag the other car as you both accelerate away from the turn.

The dummy move

A good overtaking option to remain unpredictable is the dummy move. This can be tricky to pull off, but when you do, you can leave the car ahead confused and in your dust.

The dummy move involves moving over to either the inside or outside as you approach a corner. Then, just before the braking zone, quickly switch sides and brake later than the other car. This can leave your opponent confused and vulnerable to being overtaken.

When you switch sides, be sure not to make contact with the car in front. If not done correctly, this move can result in a big crash!

Plan ahead

If you are behind a car for a little while, try to plan ahead. This means planning which corner you have the best chance of overtaking. Save your ERS power for a lap or two, then deploy it aggressively on the approach to that corner.

F1 24 gives us much more control over our ERS in this year’s game, so use that to your advantage when overtaking.

DRS (Drag reduction system)

Finally, don’t forget to utilise DRS in F1 24. Whenever you are in a DRS zone and within one second of the car ahead, you can activate DRS. This will increase your top speed, giving you a big advantage. If you are unsure of when to use DRS, you can enable the DRS assists which will activate it for you.

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Tailor your car setup

When searching for performance and stability in your car, tweaking your car setup is always a good option. Adjusting your car setup can make it faster across a single lap, kinder on its tyres, and easier to drive.

F1 24 gives plenty of car setup options to change, from aerodynamics to suspension and transmission. This can be overwhelming. If you’re searching for optimised car setups, we have some of the best F1 24 car setups for every track.

Find an optimised car setup for any track in F1 24.

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Use the best camera angle

A big part of racing in F1 24 is choosing your camera angle. Racing F1 24 using the cockpit camera can be incredibly tough, as your visibility is limited, and using the chase cam can make it hard to feel how your car is behaving.

We recommend trying either the TV pod camera for both good visibility and good feedback from your car. If you are striving for realism, use our recommended F1 24 TV pod offset camera settings. These camera settings replicate the real-world onboard cameras seen during a Formula 1 TV broadcast.

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Racing with a racing wheel

Driving F1 24 with a controller can be incredibly relaxing, especially if kicking back on your couch or bed. However, the limited motion of the controller inputs can make racing F1 24 rather tricky. Especially if trying to race F1 24 without assists.

Using a racing wheel can help you become a more consistent driver, as you’ll have much more precision in your inputs. A racing wheel also provides force feedback, allowing you to feel your car better than with a controller.

If you are thinking of buying a racing wheel, view our recommended F1 24 racing wheels.

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Analyse your lap times and telemetry

During each session in F1 24, you have the opportunity to compare your lap times and your sector times. Doing this shows you which laps were your fastest, but not much else. Utilising an analysis tool such as Track Titan to analyse your telemetry and compare it against others is one of the best ways to learn where you are losing time.

Track Titan allows you to compare every part of your lap with other drivers, including top esports drivers. You can compare your speed, racing line as well as throttle and brake inputs.

Doing this can really give you a good understanding on how much speed you can carry through different segments of a lap. You can then put this data to good use and implement it in F1 24.

You can sign up to Track Titan using our unique discount code SIMRACINGSETUP to get 50% discount on your first three months of membership. This code will also give you an extended free trial period to test Track Titan completely free.

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Conclusion

Finding lap time and becoming faster in F1 24 is a game of patience and practice. However, implementing some of the tips mentioned in this guide can give you a good headstart. As you put time into F1 24, don’t worry if you are slower after disabling assists or trying our tips. The more time you spend on track and practise, the faster and more consistent you will become.

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Frequently asked questions