Chinese Setups F1 2020

F1 2020 setup guide overview – China

The Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai is among the funnest to drive, offering plenty of places for wheel to wheel racing with the AI or league racing competitors. The track comprises of a selection mid to high speed corners, and flows brilliantly. If you can nail your racing line, each lap is thoroughly enjoyable.

China can be hard on your tyres as there are a lot of long mid speed corners. You will be putting a lot of force through your front left tyre in particular so have to create a car setup for China which takes this in to account. China is another track on the calendar which pairs long straights with twisty corners. This means your setup needs to be a balance of top speed and responsiveness.

Due to all of the sweeping corners, we generally try to keep our rear downforce around average. The front end however is normally always lower than the rear. This style of aero setup is common in F1 2020, as it gives a great trade off of downforce and rear end stability. It also doesn’t compromise your top speed as much as a high downforce front end would.

If you look through the car setups above for China in F1 2020, you will find a wide range of aero setups. Some prefer a more high downforce front end to give a little more turn in. We would still try to stick with the higher downforce rear end, and lower downforce front. In our testing, this gives the best trade off of stability, responsiveness and minimal drag.

There are a lot of big acceleration zones out of slower corners at China, meaning we should look for a low on-throttle differential setup. This will allow for the best traction while exiting corners and will also help manage your rear tyre wear.

As with many F1 2020 setups, we have a reasonably aggressive suspension geometry setup. Although putting a little more wear through your tyres, pairing this setup with a soft suspension, lower tyre pressures and low diff settings will help offset this wear. Because of the extremely long back straight, the lower toe setup will help maximise your top speed.

You would think with the long sweeping corners we would want a stiffer suspension setup. Although, because we would suggest stiffer anti-roll bars to help stiffen the car, and the fact that you will be attacking the kerbs a lot, you will want a soft suspension setup.

The stiffer anti-roll bars will help keep a certain rigidity through some of the quicker direction changes, and will offset some of the softness that we introduced with the suspension. With our F1 2020 China setup, we can get away with a low ride height, which will help minimise drag down the long back straight.

Because of the heavy braking zone into turn 14, and some reasonably heavy braking zones through the middle sector, we will want to run high brake pressures. Most braking zones are done in a straight line, so strong brake pressures should be easy to manage without lock ups.

We would also move the brake bias a little rearward to help manage front end lock ups. It will also help with front end responsiveness when turning in to corners, especially through the middle sector.

We will normally look to leave the front tyre pressures around average just to ensure we maximise turn in. If you are suffering from too much front end tyre wear, you could look to lower them 1 or 2 clicks. The rear tyre pressures can be lowered a little for our China setup. This helps manage tyre wear and improves traction out of some of the slower corners.

How To Best Drive The Chinese Grand Prix Circuit in F1 2020

There are a few really good overtaking spots around China. The back straight is one of the longest on the F1 calendar, meaning the hairpin that follows is the best spot for an overtake. Just ensure you get a good exit out of the long right hander which leads on to this straight, otherwise you may not catch the car in front in time.

Failing that, you can also overtake in to turn 1 if you are feeling brave. You will need to be along side going in to turn 1, as it doesn’t feature a regular braking zone, so you’ll need a good run to pull a move in to here. Turns 6 and 11 also feature heavy braking zones, which are great for overtakes.

If you are suffering from excess tyre wear, especially on the front left, you can always lower the front tyre pressures a couple of clicks. If you are still suffering, then look to dial back the front camber a little. These two options combined will reduce the tyre wear on your front left, however will reduce your corner responsiveness, so be aware of that when you make this change.