The Albert Park circuit in Melbourne has been Australia’s designated F1 race for nearly 30 years now, and it was re-profiled in 2022 into an even faster and more flowing layout.

 

With 4 DRS zones and a large amount of time on full throttle, you need straight line speed round here or you’ll just get swamped with AI cars overtaking you.

So you’re having to use lower wings than you might expect, with a low-medium downforce level instead of the medium downforce it was on the last game.

Here’s my current general dry race setup for Melbourne for a controller:

• Wings – 18/20 or 16/18
• Diff – 10/60/50
• Camber – -3.50/-2.20/0.08/0.24
• Suspension –  38-4-15-9-23-58
• Brakes – 100% Pressure/53% Bias
• Tyre pressures – Fronts 26.0; Rears maximum

This is a setup I created by mashing together my favourite parts of my baseline setup, with a few other setups I tried.

Hotlap With This Setup

More Setup Info

This setup is a work in progress, but here’s some extra pointers on optimizing it.

Wing levels –  I actually tried 26/28 wings in my first race here, but it wasn’t competitive on the straights in the race, so I’ve gone lower to 20/22 and this time it did seem to work (just about) for defending position. I might need to move down even further though. Try anything from 16 to 22 for the wings, but you need straight line speed for sure with 4 DRS zones and fast recouping ERS on this game.

Tyre Pressures – This is a tricky one for this track, as there’s a difference between both the front and rear tyres and the left and right side in terms of overheating. The rears heat more than the front, and the left hand side tyres heat a lot more than the right hand side. If you want more precise pressures for each tyre to account for these differences, you can try something like: front right 25.0, front left 26.0, rear right 25.5, rear left max pressures. But doing this kind of nuanced tweaking doesn’t really seem to make much difference on this game. Use max pressures for high speed responsiveness and lower pressures to better traction and low speed grip. It’s down to preference. But watch out for the rear left tyre round here, as that’s the one that overheats most readily.

Intermediate Conditions – For light rain intermediate sessions, your dry setup will work OK as a baseline, but maybe bump the wing levels up 1-2 clicks, and definitely space the rear wing 3 clicks above the front when using a pad for better stability. Also use minimum On Throttle Diff.

Full Wet Conditions – For heavy rain, make some slightly bigger adjustments, adding 4-6 clicks of wing to your dry setup, with the 3 click spacing. Soften the suspension and roll bars by a few clicks, and raise the ride height by 3 clicks as well.

Here’s a starter wet race setup for Australia for a pad user:

• Wings – 26/29
• Diff – 10/60/50
• Camber – -3.50/-2.20/0.08/0.24
• Suspension –  37-4-13-7-29-62
• Brakes – 100% Pressure/55% Bias
• Tyre pressures – Middle pressures all tyres

Bonus Setup Resources

You can go down some different setup routes here for sure, and single lap TT setups are very different from race setups. Here’s some different setup options you can try:

• My generic starter setup will also work fine on this track if you apply the wing levels and Diff settings as above. But the hybrid setup above which combines parts of a few other setups, seemed to deliver better single lap and race pace for me at least.
• F1laps.com Melbourne page – Another car setup forum with pages for every track, and loads of custom setups posted, both TT and race, all cars, all conditions.
• F1gamesetup.com – An even more specialized resource with custom setups, every car and every track, wet and dry weather.
• Sim Racing Centre (Paid setups) – Need to buy these, but they’re more advanced and potentially faster setups designed by eSports drivers. Therefore likely to be harder to control on a pad, although you can speak with their support team for help with any tweaks you need to make. Higher end solution if you really want top end speed to leagues and eSports.

Racing & Strategy Tips

Melbourne is a tricky race with all the DRS zones, so you need to be wily to maintain track position. Here’s some tips for getting through this weekend.

ERS (Qualifying) – You’ve got about 8-10 seconds of extra ERS Overtake mode to use on a Qualifying lap to boost top speed, and any number of straights to use it on. Overtake seems to work best in conjunction with DRS to really push your top speed up when in 7th and 8th gear, so with four DRS zones you can use it anywhere you want. A couple of seconds on each of the main DRS straights seems to work. Aim to drain your yellow ERS bar just as you finish a flying lap.

Last corner – This right hander is tricky on a pad when you’re not using full TC. Try to take a wide entry line to minimize the steering angle, and progressively modulate the throttle until the car is pointing straight out the corner. Can gain or lose a lot of time all along the pit straight depending on how smooth your exit is out of this corner.

Tyre/Pit Strategy – The red soft tyre is usable around here for 25% races, but only for around 3-5 laps before the rear left starts overheating and uneven wear starts making the handling weird. Buy you can try it and jump onto the hard tyre after a few laps. For longer 50% races, it’s a medium-hard strategy all the way. For strategy, the “undercut” – where you come in 1-2 laps early – can be powerful as you can benefit from the grip of fresh tyres to jump a bunch of cars. Useful strategy to try if you’re stuck in a long DRS train and can’t overtake (common round here).

First Lap – Like the last race at Jeddah, this is another track where the cars can bunch up at the first few turns and you really don’t want to be damaging your wing and having to pit on lap. Obviously, you lose the extra time having to change your wing, but dropping right to the back and out of the DRS train when there are 4 DRS zones costs you a ton of time, and it’s very hard to get back into the race. Focus on just surviving the first lap with your front nose intact, and use the DRS train and pit strategy wisely to make up places.

Defending (Races) – With four DRS zones round here, defending is a real challenge, which is why you need low wing levels here to hold position in races. Once you’re down to your last third or quarter of ERS, here’s a strategy for defending in each DRS zone:

• Pit straight – Be sure to get a good exit out of the last corner, and deploy a couple of seconds to push you into 8th gear. Should be enough to defend as long as your wings are set low enough.
• Second DRS zone – Not so important as long as you get a good exit out the 1/2 chicane. Don’t need to use Overtake to defend unless you get a really poor exit.
• Third DRS zone – This is the main one where the AI attack you at the end of the long full throttle section. Deploy a couple of seconds of Overtake mode towards the end of this straight to prevent the AI pulling alongside you, and stick to the outside line (racing line) to defend.
• Final DRS zone – After the high speed chicane. Sometimes the AI will also have a go here if they’re right on your gearbox coming out the chicane. Use a another short burst here as well if necessary, and sticking to the outside and making the AI take the sharper inside line seems to help for defending.

This method just about worked in holding off faster AI cars for my final stint of my second race round here. But even using 20/22 wings was pushing it, and I might go down to 18/20 or 16/18 wings next time to be even safer on the straights.