The Baku street circuit in Azerbaijan debuted on the F1 calendar in 2016, and has been on the calendar ever since, barring a 1 year haitus in 2020. Honestly, it’s probably my least favourite track, and I don’t like racing here. It’s getting subbed out and replaced by Portugal for my next career mode season. However, some people love it and it’s popular in league racing as well.

For a setup, you need low downforce at this track simply for the massive long pit straight, otherwise you’ll be a sitting duck. Higher wings can help in the middle part of the lap, but won’t work on the straights.

Here’s a general dry race setup for Baku for a pad user:

• Wings – 10/12
• Diff – 10/55/50
• Camber/Toe – -2.50/-2.20/0.00/0.07 (LLL7)
• Suspension – 39-5-15-9-25-58
• Brakes – 95% Pressure/53% Bias
• Tyre Pressures – Fronts 26.0; Rears maximum.

It’s really just a mod of the template setup I start on most tracks with, just wing some tweaks for easier traction and stability on this tricky rear-limited circuit. And it worked pretty well in giving me the straight line speed to properly attack and defend in a race here. In this respect, this game is giving me ’22 game vibes for sure in that you need lower wings and straight line speed above all else.

Additional Setup Analysis & Tips

Here’s some extra info on creating your own setup or using this one.

Wing levels – You need super low wing levels here to compete on the straight. Anything higher than 13 for the rear wing and I think you’ll struggle against the over-powered AI especially. You can compensate for the lower downforce this gives you by altering other aspects of the setup. 10/12 wings seemed to work fine for me using a pad, but you can experiment plus or minus 2-3 clicks either way to see what works for you.

Traction & Rotation – All things being equal, having as low an Off Throttle Diff value as possible is better to give you the best rotation in corners. But at Baku, I found running the standard 50 caused over-rotation and traction issues on a pad as soon as tyres started to get 4-6 laps old. So I’ve kept the 2 wing spacing and bumped the Off Throttle Diff up to 55 for better stability over long runs.

More Aggressive – If you want to make the setup more aggressive for better cornering in the twisty infield bits, you can: a) bring the wings closer together or invert them, b) Lower your Off Throttle Diff for better rotation, c) Raise the suspension and ARB values a few clicks. But it’ll make it much harder to control once the tyres start to wear. My setup is designed to be easier to control over long runs and worked well in my first offline race even with worn tyres. However, if I’m honest it wasn’t very strong in a 25% online race against some strong players and I was a second or so a lap off the top pace, BUT it easy to be consistent and avoid crashing especially. So it depends whether you want raw pace or easy handling, but if you want to be quicker, you’ll have to invert the wings and set the front wing higher than the rear and be more aggressive on turn in.

Tyre Pressures – It’s a traction heavy and rear limited circuit, so you need the rear pressures a bit higher to prevent overheating, although it’s not a major problem. The fronts are less of an issue and you can set them anywhere from the middle to maximum depending on handling preference. The left hand side tyres overheat less as they’re not stressed as much as the right hand side, so you can set these 1 PSI lower than the rights, but it doesn’t really seem to make a massive difference on this game.

Intermediate Conditions – When it’s just raining lightly, the dry setup should still work OK. But you could raise the wings 1-2 clicks, soften the suspension/roll bars 1-2 clicks and raise the ride height a few clicks as well. Also make sure you move your On Throttle Diff down to minimum 10 if it’s not already there. Also, as traction is very tricky here, always set the rear wing 3 clicks higher than the front in the wet here, whether in inter or full wet conditions.

Full Wet Conditions – Full full wet conditions in a race, you can add a lot more wing (4-6 clicks) and prioritize the middle sectors more with DRS being disabled. But you need more stability for sure, and always have that 3 click gap between the front and rear wing in the wet here for easier traction.

For a full wet race, here’s a suggested wet race setup for Baku for a pad user:

• Wings – 15/18
• Diff – 10/60/50
• Camber – -3.50/-2.20/0.00/0.07
• Suspension –  37-3-13-7-28-61
• Brakes – 95% Pressure/53 Bias
• Tyre pressures – Front tyres middle pressures: Rear tyres max pressures.

More Setup Resources

Baku is one of my weaker tracks for sure for single lap/Time Trial pace. So if you’re looking for blisteringly fast setups over one lap, you’ll need to check out some other resources, as it’s not my specialty.

Here’s some suggested resources for more aggressive or car specific Baku setups:

• If you’re wanting a more aggressive race setup, you can try the SimRacingSetups YouTube channel’s Baku setup here. But it’s created for wheel users, not pad users, so you might want to port over my Wing and Diff settings above. It can be potentially faster than my setup above, but also trickier to control over a race distance. It’s the usual trade-off of stability vs speed.
• F1laps.com Azerbaijan 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 (Premium) – Top level setup site, but you have to pay for the configurations (can buy for single tracks or bundle packs). Designed for wheel users by eSports drivers, so not optimized for pad users (but their support team may be able to advise you on tweaks to make). More aggressive option if you’re very confident with the pad handling and want higher end pace.

Tips For Racing At Baku

Here’s some extra driving and racing tips round here.

ERS (Qualifying) – You’ve got a decent allocation of the super fast Overtake mode to use on flying laps here – about 8-10 seconds on a Qualifying lap in online modes. I like to use a few seconds combined with DRS coming onto a flying lap, a longer burst along most of the DRS zone out of turn 2, and then whatever is left along with DRS coming back onto the pit straight to finish the flying lap. Watch the yellow ERS bar on Quali laps, and look to drain it just as you’re finishing the lap.

ERS (Defending in races) – The ERS recoups quickly enough on this ’24 game that you can actually attack and defend quite effectively in races as long as you’ve got your wings set low enough. If you’re in a position where you’re not going to shake off chasing cars and it’s just a matter of defending until the end, just deploy your Overtake mode on the pit straight (coming up to and in the DRS zone) and all along the second DRS zone coming out of turn 2. And then leave it the rest of the lap to recharge. Just using it on these two straights can work to attack and defend.

Turn 2 – There’s always carnage on lap 1 coming into this second left hander onto the first DRS zone, even with the AI cars and certainly in online races. The cars always seem to bunch up and will leave you with nowhere to go unless you’re very cautious and just approach this corner on lap 1 solely with the intention of surviving it with your front wing intact. Aggressively trying to make up places here never seems to work; just aim to keep your nose clean and make any overtakes on the following straight using your ERS (very possible if you set your wings low enough).

Turn 15 – This is the tricky downhill left hander before the final left hander that leads you back onto the massive long run onto the pit straight. It’s always tricky to get this right and it’s tempting to try and carry speed and brake late for this left hander. But I found this doesn’t work and braking early taking a slow-in-fast-out approach worked better here. Taking a wider entry and focus on getting smooth and progressive traction on corner exit seemed to deliver better lap times than trying to be too aggressive at this corner.

Wide entry angle, slow-in-fast-out for Turn 15