The Chinese GP finally returned to the real life F1 calendar in 2024 after 5 years away, but it’s always been on all the games anyway as a bonus or main track and is always a popular one with gamers. I’ve always liked it and it’s always on any calendar I put together.

 

With all the twisty sections, you’d think a higher downforce setup would be what’s needed, but that’s not the way it’s gone the last few F1 games and F1 25 continues the trend. You actually need a setup with medium downforce or just below it to defend on the massive long straight with the AI.

Here’s my starter dry race setup for China for a controller user:

• Wings – 28/30 or 38/40
• Diff – 10/55
• Camber – -3.50/-2.00/0.03/0.13
• Suspension – 41-1-4-8-22-49
• Brakes – 100% Pressure/55% Bias
• Tyre pressures – Middle pressures all tyres

Hotlap

 

For sure this is a more “understeery” setup that will cost you a bit in the twisty sections. It also needs more work as my only practice session in my first career mode race here was fully wet so I didn’t have any dry testing. But it provides excellent stability on a pad and was competitive in a race at 100+ AI level on the launch version of the game (I have a feeling a patch is coming to make the difficulty levels harder though).

More Setup Info

Here’s some more info and tips on creating your own tweaked and customised setup.

Wing levels – There’s a couple of different routes you can go down with wing levels here:

• Medium downforce route  28/30 wings – Gives better speed on the back straight but is more awkward in the twisty middle sector, especially when the tyres are worn. Good for attacking and defending if you can manage a bit of instability (if you really want you can go even lower with the wings and try something like 20/22, but this can be really tricky on a pad on worn tyres).
• Higher downforce route 38/40 wings – Much better in the twisty middle sector and also better for following and reducing the effect of dirty air, but will leave you vulnerable on the long straight in races.
• Alternate high downforce option – If neither of these options give a planted enough feel on worn tyres, another thing you could try is loading the preset “Increased downforce” setup from the game, and then porting over the wing, diff, brake and tyre settings from my setup above (but leaving the suspension and geometry settings as you find them in the preset). This gives an even more planted and stable feel to the handling, but might give slightly slower lap times.

All things equal, I’m usually preferring higher downforce setups on this game whenever possible, but honestly I couldn’t find much difference between the two wing levels testing them both out online, so I think it’s down to personal preference. Using 38/40 felt a little easier in the traction zones in sector and especially the long right hander leading onto the back straight. The lower wing levels gave better times in Qualifying strangely but race pace seemed similar using either wing level.

(you can also experiment with a higher wing level for the sprint Q/R, and then lower them just before you go out for the Main Quali session if you decide it doesn’t really work and you want lower wings. Setups can be amended very briefly just before you drive out for Main Quali during Sprint weekends).

Tyre Pressures – On previous games it’s been max pressures all round here because of the stress on the left hand side tyres especially, but this year you can get away with a bit less. Experiment with anything from middle and three quarters of the way to the right. If you want to get precise about it, you can set the right side tyres 0.5-1 PSI lower than the left side as they’re less stressed and overheat less. But everything in the middle or just above works fine for me.

Intermediate Conditions – For light rain sessions, your dry setup should work OK, but always space the rear wing 4 clicks above the front when using a pad for better stability and traction. I just did a full intermediate race here and even the standard 4 click spacing wasn’t enough to maintain stability coming out of corners once the tyres started to wear, so I’d go up to 5-6 click spacing. Also, you can add 1-2 clicks of wing or use the same levels you do in the dry depending on your preference. Set your On throttle Diff to minimum and increase the Off Throttle Diff 5-10 clicks.

Full Wet Conditions – Full heavy rain conditions, I’d add a bunch more wing (something like 35/40 or 40/45 wings) and keep the 5 or even 6 click spacing for better stability. Then it’s just the usual tweaks of softening the suspension and roll bars and raising the ride height 3-5 clicks for easier handling. Whatever setup you use for full wet conditions, it’s got to make traction easy for smooth corner exits, or you’ll lose a bunch of time with the back end stepping out all the time in lower gears. If you’re still struggling, keep raising the Off Throttle Diff up to 65 (dampens the rotation) and make sure your On Throttle Diff is at minimum for easiest to apply traction.

Racing & Strategy Tips

China can be a tricky weekend to navigate firstly because of the changeable weather, but also the weekend format. Here’s a few tips for getting through a race here.

Sprint Format

China is the first race on this year’s calendar that take the sprint weekend format. This means your weekend goes as follows – Practice 1 —- Sprint Quali—– Sprint Race —– Main Qualifying — Main Race. Therefore you’ve only got one practice session before you’re straight away into the quali and race sessions – just one session to get a setup dialled in and the practice programmes done. Choose the Harder tyre allocation before the weekend starts if you want to free up two sets of softs for the single practice session. The Balanced allocation will give you one hard and one soft set for the sole practice session, which is what I prefer. If you’re planning on doing a 50% race, then I’d choose the harder allocation to free up two sets of hards for this race.

Parc Ferme

Also, for sprint format weekends, car setups are locked into “parc ferme” as soon as you drive out in Sprint Quali, very briefly unlocked again just before you go out in Main Quali, and then locked again for the remainder of the weekend. So there’s very little chance to change your car setup once the single practice session is over. Also, be sure to change any engine parts right away after the practice session to avoid any penalties.

Tyres (Qualifying)

You might only have one set of softs available for the Sprint Quali session. If you do, be sure to only go out in the last 5 minutes of the session, when the track is “rubbered in” and at it’s fastest. Same for Main Qualifying – you might only have two sets of softs, so again be sure to save one set for the last few minutes. Track evolution is a real thing on the latest F1 games and you can set faster lap times right at the end of qualifying sessions.

ERS (Qualifying)

As with the last track at Australia, you’ve got LOADS of excess Overtake mode to use on Qualifying laps, basically as much as you want to deploy on all the long and medium length straights. It’s actually hard to use it all up at first like at Melbourne. Just deploy it whenever you reasonably can in sectors 1 and 2 and whatever you have left on the massive long back straights. You’re looking to drain your yellow battery meter to zero or close to it just as you finish flying laps.

Tyre Wear and Strategy 

Wear is much higher on this game than the last one. Here are approximate rates from the race I’ve done:

• Soft tyre – 8%+ per lap
• Medium – 5% per lap
• Hard – 4% per lap

Watch out for the front and rear left as they wear at a disproportionately higher rate than the right hand side tyres, which can create some seriously weird handling on the softs especially after a few laps. The softs are really only good for 2-3 laps max before you need to go onto a harder tyre. 50% races are pretty much guaranteed 2 stops (MHH), and it’s often easier to stay away from the soft tyre altogether here and just use mediums and hards. Also, if you are doing a 50% race for the main race, always choose the HARDER tyre allocation before weekend starts and if you’re doing a MHH strategy in the race, be sure to only use the medium and not the hard for the shorter sprint race, which saves the two hards for the longer race.

Defending (Race)

For holding position in races, it’s harder than the ’24 game because your ERS doesn’t recharge anything like as fast this year. To preserve the battery, you just need to use it very sparingly with a stock car and just deploy it for several seconds only per lap and only along one straight, such as the long back straight, and don’t use it anywhere else to let it recharge back to the level you were. Use any more than that and your overall level will start depleting lap after lap until it’s all gone and you can’t defend on the main straight. Also prioritize ERS upgrades (engine department) in career mode as soon as they’re unlocked to allow faster ERS recouping and therefore easier attacking and defending.

And if you’re using my higher downforce 38/40 wing levels, focus on getting a good smooth exit onto the back straight every lap and using your ERS here to punch away from chasing cars as best you can. But I’m not gona lie, it’s hard in an undeveloped career mode car to ward off the AI on 100+ level as they get insane launch off the corner onto the long straight. Sometimes you might have to let a few obviously faster cars past instead of fighting and settle into a position that reflects your pace.

But my setup does seem to keep wear on the hard tyre low, down at about 3.5-4% even on a season 1 career mode car. Therefore if you can get to lap 10 on the medium tyre in a 50% race, you could try doing a 1 stop pitting lap 10-12 if you want to try something different.