French Setups F1 2020

F1 2020 setup guide overview – France

The French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard is a relatively new addition to the F1 calendar. It offers a fun, fast and technical F1 circuit with plenty of overtaking spots. To create the perfect F1 2020 France setup you’ll need a stiff suspension and a good front end. This needs to be balanced with protecting your tyres as Paul Ricard can be quite harsh on tyre wear.

France features an extremely long straight so will want to run a lower aero setup around Paul Ricard. There are a few slower technical sections of track, and the last sector requires a good amount of turn in. You should look to run fairly even aerodynamics with the front a little higher. This should ensure front end responsiveness where you need it, and minimise drag down the long straight.

There aren’t too many high traction acceleration zones around the French circuit. This allows us to setup our on-throttle differential fairly aggressive. We would set it some where between 70-80 for the best lap time. If you are suffering from a little oversteer or tyre wear during a race, you can lower that to between 60-70. This will help preserve your tyre wear.

We will also keep the off-throtte differential fairly high to ensure the rears are rotating together through the long corners.

Camber is a tricky part of this setup to get right. Too aggressive and your tyre wear will suffer, too conservative and you’ll lose responsiveness and lap time. We would recommend average to aggressive camber. Try to test this during the race practice program to see the sort of tyre wear you are taking.

Keep the toe low to maximise your straight line speed around Paul Ricard. When we move to the suspension setup for France, we can run a stiff setup. This is because the whole of Paul Ricard is completely flat, with very few bumps or undulations. You can really attack this circuit, attack the kerbs which are barely noticeable. This gives us the opportunity to stiffen our suspension setup.

The anti-roll bars follow suit, and are setup to be slightly stiffer than average. This will allow the car to change direction quickly through the more technical sectors at Paul Ricard.

Being completely flat, we can also run a low ride height setup. Keep the rear ride height one notch higher than the front to increase your car’s turn in capability.

Due to the smooth surface, we don’t need to worry too much about locking wheels. This lets us run a higher brake pressure to minimise our stopping distance. Keep your brake bias around 54-55 to give the best braking performance. You can push this forward a little during the race if you are going for a big overtake, or want to slow the car down quicker at the end of the long straight.

We would recommend lowering your tyre pressure setup a little. This will help with both tyre wear and traction coming out of the corners. The increased traction at the rears will help accelerating out of corners a little as the rest of our setup hasn’t prioritised traction.

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

When you first drive the Paul Ricard circuit, it can be hard to master your racing line. The track is very flat, and a lot of the kerbs are just painted on so they are hard to spot. This can make it hard to see upcoming corners.

The key to driving France quickly is truly learning the track layout. This is more important around Paul Ricard than other circuits, as you will often find yourself braking and turning in, before you even see the corner apex.

There are also a few long corners with late apexes, especially in the last sector. These, once again, require you to learn the correct driving line, as it isn’t apparent the first time you drive the circuit.

We would highly recommend watching a few hotlap videos of other drivers racing Paul Ricard. This is often the quickest way to learn a circuit, and learn new racing lines.

When you do master your racing line around France, the circuit becomes a very enjoyable one to drive. You should look to attack apexes and even ride over kerbs on corner entry to straighten corners as much as possible.

Driving the first sector requires you to place your car over the rather flat kerbs to maximise your performance. Just be aware of corner cut warnings if you push the limits too far. Because you will be using all of the track and then some more to drive the fastest lap times, be aware of these corner cut warnings. Especially if you are driving online in league races, you can quickly find yourself in trouble if you aren’t aware of the track limits.