Monaco Setups F1 2020

F1 2020 setup guide overview – Monaco

This tricky street circuit requires a very particular, downforce heavy setup to succeed in F1 2020. We run you through our Monaco setup guide for F1 2020 below. If you want to see a full setup, click any of the setups above to see exact F1 2020 Monaco setups.

Monaco is one of the classic crown jewels of Formula 1, but it divides opinion heavily. The tight streets around this classic circuit make wheel to wheel racing almost impossible. It is hard to follow cars around Monaco, and even harder to overtake.

You should prioritise your qualifying setup and aim to get as high up the grid as possible. If you qualify at the front of the Monaco grid, you can control the race at your own pace. You shouldn’t worry too much about being overtaken, even if the cars behind are quicker in the race.

Aerodynamics

Monaco is one of the slowest tracks in F1 2020, and therefore we would suggest running the highest amount of downforce. You may not want to run a full 11-11 wing setup, but pretty close to it.

You still require a little straight line speed down the pit straight, and into the Nouvelle Chicane. These are the only two real overtaking spots around the whole circuit. You should ensure you have just enough speed to cover any attempts at an overtake from behind.

Transmission

The slow corners around Monaco mean you will be accelerating hard from low speed often. This will almost certainly run you in to tyre trouble during a long race. The last thing you want if you are leading the pack around Monaco is to have to pit an extra time for new tyres.

So tyre management is key at Monaco. We will suggest running an extremely low (open) on-throttle differential setup. This will help your traction on corner exit, meaning you wont spin up your rear wheels as much. In turn, this will help your rear tyres last longer through a race.

To maximise your qualifying time, you can manually increase your differential setting to give you a better run out of corners. You should only do this in qualifying because tyre wear isn’t too much of an issue across a single lap.

When you start your formation lap, lower that differential right back down to its lowest setting.

Suspension Geometry

Again, tyre wear is priority when it comes to your suspension geometry setup. We would run more camber and toe than usual, just to ensure we get maximum life out of our tyres.

By putting more negative camber in our setup, you increase the contact patch of the tyre with the road. This in turn helps spread the heat through the tyre more evenly. By spreading the heat through more of the tyre, your tyres will stay cooler for longer.

The increased toe angle helps more with responsiveness than anything else. The more toe, the more responsive your car will be, and the quicker it will turn in to the tight corners of Monaco. This will help us carry more speed through each corner.

Suspension

The streets of Monaco were designed as residential streets before they were a race track. This means the usual bumps you find on a normal road apply to Monaco. These large bumps and undulations mean a softer suspension setup will prevail around the streets of Monaco.

You will also find that you will be running over some kerbs throughout the lap. And the kerbs around Monaco are very large!

Running a really soft suspension is recommended. It will increase your stability throughout each lap, and wont negatively affect your corner speed. The anti-roll bars follow a similar story. However we would stiffen the anti-roll bars more than the suspension. Anti-roll bars setup to around 4 to 6 will increase your ability to throw the car through the fast middle sector.

You will want to lower the ride height a little, but not as much as we normally would. Instead, lower it just one or two clicks. Too low and your car will bottom out over the large bumps of Monaco.

Brakes

As Monaco is a very slow circuit, a lot of your lap time gains will be made through your braking. If you can brake later and harder you will find a lot of lap time through qualifying and the race.

To ensure we stop quickly, increase your brake pressure to around the 90 mark. Working with this is the brake bias, which we would recommend keeping around 54-55.

Having an average brake bias will allow your car to stay responsive at the front end. Increasing the front brake bias will slow the car down quicker, but you will find you’ll start to understeer into corners. Keep the brake bias average to avoid this.

Tyres

Traction and tyre wear is key for our tyre pressure setup at Monaco. We will lower both fron and rear tyre pressures to help disapate heat more effectively. The lower rear pressures will also have the added bonus of increasing your traction patch when you press the loud pedal.

That is our Monaco setup guide for F1 2020. With the differential raised it should give enough one lap pace to qualify well. Then during the race it’ll ensure your tyres last.

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

As mentioned, the key to winning at Monaco in F1 2020 is maximise your qualifying. If you can qualify on the front of the grid you will be able to manage the entire race. Try to stretch out a one stop strategy to ensure the quickest race time.

To be quick around Monaco you need confidence, and to learn the track. You can attack the corners around this street circuit a lot more than initially thought.

You should also look to accelerate a lot earlier in the corner than you normally would. The low corner speeds mean that if you can get on the accelerate a split second sooner at every corner you will make up a lot of time.