The Miami race has received a mixed reception among fans since it’s 2022 debut, both for games and in real life. Personally, it’s not one of my favourite tracks and I can’t really explain why. It seems like a well thought out track and has got some unique sections but it just doesn’t really do anything for me.

 

The layout may suggest you need something with medium downforce here, but straight line speed is king and you actually need a low downforce setup with much lower than average wing levels to stay competitive on the two long DRS straights here.

Just using my normal baseline template setup I start with left the car feeling very twitchy and nervous round here, so I’ve had to make quite a few more tweaks than normal to give the setup a more planted, stable feeling for pad users.

Here’s my current general dry race setup for Miami for a pad user:

• Wings – 9/12 or 19/22
• Diff – 10/55
• Camber – -3.50/-2.00/0.05/0.15
• Suspension – 41-3-14-10-22-49
• Brakes – 100% Pressure/55% Bias
• Tyres – maximum pressures all tyres

Alternate setup option – Load up the “increased top speed” (low but not minimum downforce) preset from your setup page, and port over the wing, diff, brake and tyre pressure setups from above (but leave the geometry and suspension settings as you find them in the preset). Delivers perhaps slightly better race pace and stability, though I need to test it some more.

This is definitely more stability and consistency focused rather than pure paced focused and is definitely a work in progress as it seems quite tricky to get a setup that’s not just stable on fresh tyres but also drivable on worn ones as well.

Hotlap With My Setup

 

More Setup Info And Tweaks

My main issue with using my baseline round here was the handling felt too nervous and unstable, and I had no confidence I could control it consistently over a race distance without clipping one of the nearby walls and ruining my race.

So I’ll detail the key tweaks I’ve made and how to undo them if you want to unlock more potential performance at the expense of a “looser”, less stable handling on a pad.

Wing Levels – Need to go super low here with the overpowered AI and two massive DRS zones. I’ve picked 9/12 which works for pure lap time but you might want to go even lower to something like 8/11 or 7/10. And I’ve found that on a pad, you need that 3 click spacing with the rear above the front for stability as the traction is really tricky on this track in several areas.

There’s also a higher downforce wing option – try something like 19/22 wings, which will be stronger in turn 1 and sector 1 in general, more stable on worn tyres and better for following (less dirty air). But you’ll be more vulnerable on the straights. I’m actually preferring the higher downforce option right now, especially for longer races where you’re dealing with worn tyres.

Stability – I’ve deviated from the normal of most setups I’ve been using so far in a few ways here to get a more planted feel with the handling – flipped the ARB settings round so the front is a bit higher than the rear. I’d also like to have added 3 clicks to the front and rear toe for even more stability, but I literally can’t here as tyre temps are already on the edge with the rears especially and it pushes them over the edge.

Tweaks For Better Performance (summary) – Bottom line if you’re prepared to trade off some stability for better potential pace, you can: a) set the front wing higher than the rear (especially for qualifying), b) flip the roll bar settings round and set the rear higher than the front, something like 10/19 or 10/21, and c) reduce your Off Throttle Diff. But the car will be more twitchy and harder to control on a pad, especially with worn tyres.

Intermediate Conditions – For light rain conditions, traction becomes even trickier, so space the wings apart so the rear is 3 or even 4 clicks higher than the front, increase your Off Throttle Diff to 60 and use minimum On Throttle Diff if not already there for easier traction.

Full Wet Conditions – This track is really not enjoyable for me under full wet conditions, so I recommend bigger tweaks for the easiest possible traction. Add a bunch more wing and space them 4 or even 5 clicks apart (something like 17/21 or 18/22) and move Off Throttle Diff to 60 to dampen rotation. Increase the ride height 3 clicks from and rear as well. Traction gets really hard here in heavy rain, so opt for whatever gives you optimal rotation to get easy drive out of slow corners. The 4 or 5 click spacing seems extreme but might be necessary to keep the car stable on corner exit.

Racing & Strategy Tips

I think Miami is a super tricky race on F1 25 for several key reasons, number one being it’s hard to get a good setup dialed in, and you’ve got so little time to do it with the weekend format. I’ll cover this and some other issues below.

Sprint Format – Miami is the second race on this year’s calendar that takes 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. Setups are locked after the sole practice session, and only unlocked again briefly before you drive out in Main Qualifying.

Turn 6-8 (KEY SECTION) – This is the long left looping hairpin that ends sector 1 and leads onto the first long straight. It’s crucial to carry as much minimum speed as possible by braking only briefly and gently and carrying speed round the 7/8 left turn. If you brake too hard and too long you end up scrubbing too much speed off and lose time both in the corner and all along the straight as well. Try and practice nailing this section on a pad – brake early and gently while still in a straight line, take a wide outside line and carry speed round the hairpin, using partial throttle to hook the car round as well if needed.

Traction/Rotation/Tyre Temps – From my only race here so far, this seems to be the key issue for pad users. You’ve got to be super patient and progressive and cautious on the throttle on the slow corner exit, or you get this horrible wheelspin if you mash the power on too early, which overheats the rear tyres, making the already tricky traction harder and you can get stuck in a negative loop. This is why I recommend a more “understeery” setup here to prevent over-rotation and allow you to get back on the power smoothly as your tyres start to wear. Try not to let the soft tyres get above 102/103 Celsius and 106/107 C for the medium and hard tyres, and if you do have a wheelspin moment on the rear tyres, take it easy for a few laps to let them cool down.

Tyre Wear and Strategy – Wear is quite high here and temps heat up quite readily as well. Here’s the wear rates I found:

• Softs – 9-10% per lap
• Mediums – 6% per lap
• Hards – 5% per lap (sometimes up to 6% as well)
• Front right wears the most, rear right will also overheat quickly if corner exits are poor.

Basically, unless you’re super cautious and smooth, the softs aren’t usable in races here, even for 25% ones. It’s medium and hard all the way, and almost certainly a 2 stop strategy for 50% races (MHH). And as I mentioned above, even the mediums and hards will overheat if you’re too aggressive on the throttle on slower corner exits (keep an eye on your right rear especially).

(Update – Tyre wear is insane here in online races, with even a 2 stop MHH sometimes tricky to do with even the hards wearing at 6% per lap sometimes. Try to stretch the mediums until lap 8 in a 50% race and then two stints on the hards becomes manageable, but only just).

Bottom Line – At least with a stock career car, Miami is probably not the race to be overly aggressive in pushing and trying to “force” pace. It might be a race where you just have to drive cautiously and consistently, being gentle on the throttle, and where you finish is where you finish. I finally started getting the hang of it in my last few laps of my first race here, after going completely over the top on the throttle and totally burning up my hard tyres (pace starts falling massively off if you do this).