If you’re finding F1 2021’s newest addition difficult, give our Jeddah setup a go.
Photo credit: Codemasters / EA
Back in November of 2021, F1 2021 released the final free circuit update of its life cycle in the form of the Jeddah Corniche circuit in Saudi Arabia. Tight, twisty and high-speed, the track provides a significant challenge to all those who attempt to drive it. In order to make things a little easier on yourself, you need to have the right setup to ensure that you have the right car for the job. In this article, we will guide you through the creation of the optimal race setup for beginners.
For more F1 2021 setup guides, take a look at our setup hub.
Aerodynamics and Transmission
First and most important in any F1 2021 setup are the wing settings. Both your front and rear wing angles are crucial to a good setup, and the wrong wings can literally ruin everything. For Jeddah, we recommend going with a 7-9 setup on the front and rear wings respectively. The high-medium front wing angle helps to ensure the car isn’t sluggish through the fast corners, while a higher rear wing angle provides stability in the multiple traction zones around the circuit. If you find yourself struggling to accelerate smoothly, consider raising the rear wing a point or two.
Next up in the setup menu is the transmission page. As with your rear wing angle, the on-throttle differential setting can be used to encourage stability under acceleration at low speeds. If you want a more stable car in the traction zones, a lower on-throttle setting is required, while a higher setting offers a greater maximum output in terms of potential acceleration. For a race setup, an on-throttle setting of 65% with an off-throttle setting of just 50% works very well and helps to limit tyre wear as a bonus.
Suspension Geometry and Suspension
Suspension geometry comes next, and for your camber settings we recommend playing it safe and using the minimum camber (i.e. furthest to the right on the scale) as it promotes stability and reduces tyre wear. Running with -2.50 and -1.00 on the fronts and rears respectively sacrifices a little potential lap time for a lot of drivability and consistency.
As usual, your toe angles don’t have a massive impact on how your car drives, but cranking up the rear toe level to 0.44 can boost stability just that little bit more. As for your front wheels, a toe setting of just 0.05 is sufficient at Jeddah.
Now we move on to the settings in the suspension tab. It’s important to maintain some suspension rigidity in Jeddah, as the sweeping corners require a responsive car to negotiate all of the high-speed direction changes. However, an over-sprung car becomes unsteady quickly, so you need to find the right balance. 3-6 for the front and rear suspension stiffness works well for us, but if you find the car to be too twitchy, you could lower these values a little.
As for your anti-roll bars, 1-9 gives you a manageable car which doesn’t understeer too badly in the middle of the high-speed corners. The higher rear value helps to prevent sudden snaps at the rear of the car, which can be a significant hazard in some parts of this track. For ride height, 4-6 gives you plenty of clearance above the kerbs and tarmac so that your car doesn’t feel too skittish anywhere on the circuit. You could even try lowering your ride height for extra top speed if you feel comfortable.
Brakes and Tyres
There’s not so much to think about when it comes to your brakes. If you are good on the brake pedal, running 100% brake pressure will always help you extract the most performance from your car. However, if you find yourself locking up frequently, lowering this number by a few percentage points isn’t a bad idea at all. Then for your brake bias, you can go pretty far towards the rear brakes. 52% gives you a reliable car in the braking zones, and some people even prefer to run as low as 50% here. Ultimately, it depends on your comfort levels – if you consistently lock your front tyres, shift the bias rearward.
Finally we move on to tyres, and again there’s a pretty simple choice to be made. If you are easy on your tyres with a smooth driving style, you can generally afford to run higher tyre pressures. This is because you won’t be pumping so much heat into the rubber as a more erratic driver would. We’ve gone for 24.2psi on the fronts and 23.1psi on the rears, but you can adjust these values yourself. If your tyres are getting too hot, lower the pressure.
To see our Jeddah track guide, click here.
How well does our setup work for you? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
