The new game is out and the real-world paddock is heading to Spielberg next. Here’s our F1 23 Austria setup guide in case you want to rival this year’s pole time.
The Red Bull Ring as its known today is a historical Formula One venue surrounded by mountains. Over the year, it has carried many names but one thing is true, it is the definitive location for the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull Ring may look easy on paper. But mixing long straights, tricky braking zones and tough on traction, it is anything but simple. As a result, perfecting one’s setup is crucial to finding the right balance of top-end speed and low-speed grip. Here is our beginner’s guide to car setup for Austria in F1 23 as we aim to provide a stepping stone into competition.
Table of contents
Aerodynamics
As aforementioned, the Austria Grand Prix track in F1 23 requires a low-drag aero setup. In fact, the circuit’s many straights means traction, acceleration and top-speed are of great importance.
With that in mind, its best to start off with a low-drag setup preset just to get a relevant starting point. From there, you may want to alter the wing angles for a bit more high-speed pointiness in when it comes to the middle sector and its fast-flowing sequence.
After some testing in-game, it appears that a Front Wing angle of 20 and Rear Wing of 27 provides a good balance of top-end speed and controllability in Sector 2.
Transmission
When it comes to the transmission setup in F1 23, it all comes down to low-speed traction. The big limiting factor at Spielberg has to be the tight Turn 3 exit as it rises over a crest. In fact, one must almost base their standard differential setup around this turn alone to avoid spinning out every lap.
A more open On Throttle value of 55% is what we found to work well here. The Off Throttle value can be closer to a locked setup, however, to improve stability on turn-in. We recommend setting this to 75%.
Suspension Geometry
With its short apex turns, Spielberg requires a responsive chassis that can turn in to a corner as soon as its asked. In fact, jumping off the brakes and firing the nose into a corner is a fast process here.
To ensure you have all the turn-in you need, dialing out as much understeer as possible is the way to go. For this, lots of Rear Toe-In is required to keep the rear end in-line, around 0.26° seems to work best. Furthermore, a Front Toe-In value of 0.05° allows for good bite from the front end.
In the longer turns of the middle sector, sustained grip from a decent amount of negative camber makes for a driveable car. However, this shouldn’t be overdone in a racing scenario as it will ruin your tyres faster than you can say “Red Bull Ring.” For the Front Camber, we suggest -3.20° and -1.50° for the Rear Camber.
Suspension
As for the suspension itself, the lack of majorly fast sections requiring heaps of downforce means one can get away with a soft overall setup. This will help with traction but may cause the front end to push more in Sector 2.
For Front and Rear Suspension, softer springs of around 13 on each axle looks to do the trick. However, if the front end begins to slide more at later stages of a long run, try bumping the front up a notch or two. We also set the roll bars fairly soft. In our setup, we put the Front Anti-Roll Bar to 8 and the Rear to 5. This makes for a stable car in the faster turns but also keeps the rear planted on acceleration.
Finally on this page, the Front and Rear Ride Height can stay quite low thanks to Austria’s relatively smooth track surface and lack of big kerbs. We set the car to 35 and 40 on each axle respectively, making for a car that doesn’t wallow too much in the slow turns.
Brakes
With lots of elevation change going into corners, notably at Turns 1, 3 and 4, getting on the brakes in the correct way is very important in Austria. When jumping on the brakes to complete a pass or get the most out of a quali lap, it’s important to be confident you’re not going to lock up.
Whilst reducing the maximum brake power can help reduce lock ups, it will impact your braking efficiency at high speed. In fact, you are best keeping a maximum Brake Pressure of 100%. To help alleviate any locking you may experience, alter the Brake Bias. Move it to the front or rear depending on the axle you are struggling with. Somewhere in the ball park of 58% seems to do the trick based on some running.
Tyres
On the F1 23 tyres setup screen, one has access to the tyre pressures. Lowering pressures will have a positive impact on the car’s overall mechanical grip. But lower them too much and the car can get sluggish in faster corners.
At Austria, one can run fairly low pressures given the majority of the corners are point and shoot turns. Make sure the rears especially low – we recommend dropping to around 20.3 psi for the rear axle. For the front tyres, 22.5 psi helps to maintain some turn-in agility.
What do you make of our F1 23 Austria GP Setup Guide? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
