The classic Silverstone Circuit in England has always been a fan favourite in all it’s different layouts, and is great for racing with it’s high speed sections leading onto long and wide straights.

 

All things being equal, you’d definitely want a decent level of downforce here with the high speed corners, but as per usual on F1 25 and the last few games in general, players are generally running wings on the lower side, with a below medium level of downforce required to stay competitive on the straights.

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

• Wings – 18/20 (now recommend 28/30)
• Diff – 10/55
• Camber/Toe – -3.50/-2.00/0.03/0.13
• Suspension – 41-3-14-10-22-49
• Brakes – 100% Pressure/55% Bias
• Tyre Pressures – Maximum all tyres

(update – I’m in the process of revising some of my setups, including this one, to recommend higher wing levels. You need higher downforce on this game to make the handling easier (and average lap times better) once the tyres are worn. So I’d now recommend upping the wings to somewhere around 30 (28/30) for better overall pace. Using 18/20, traction and grip was too difficult in sector 1 and 3 once the tyres went off)

Hotlap With My Setup (28/30 Wings)

 

Additional Setup Considerations

Like at Austria, I honed in on my setup pretty quickly once I found the right wing level, but here’s some tweaks you can make.

Wing levels – Could really rest anything from 18 to 30, but initially on F1 25 I was using lower wing level to stay competitive on the straights against the OP AI. For me, 18/20 worked great in still providing good performance in the esses and also good speed on the straights for defending.

But the main problem with lower wings is it makes traction much harder once you’re on worn tyres, so a higher wing setup like 28/30 will also work even if you’re somewhat weaker on the straights. It depends whether you want raw speed on the straights or something better all round for an entire stint. I’m actually using higher wings more often now after playing the game a bit more.

Tyre Pressures – Both wear and temps are really harsh at Silverstone on this game, so it’s max pressures all tyres as a baseline to keep temps down. And even with max pressures, the front and rear left and still marginal on overheating, with temps quickly climbing up to 106/107 C even on the medium and hard tyres using my setup. Traction still felt fine on my long runs, but it’s advisable to stay smooth and patient on the throttle and avoid extreme wheelspin to keep the rear tyres usable in the second half of stints.

Stability Settings – I’ve bumped the Off Throttle Diff up to 55 and set the roll bars at 14/10 just to provide and more planted feel and maximum stability on the traction zones in sector 1 and 3 for when the tyres are worn. If you want something more aggressive but potentially harder to control across a race, try bumping the Off Diff down to 45 or 40 and flipping the roll bars to something like 12/16 or 12/21 (but can be trickier on worn tyres).

Geometry (Key Setting) – The front and rear toe settings seems to be the crucial settings tradeoff, with my method of adding 3-5 clicks gives great stability and a good planted feel to the handling that allows driving with confidence. However, moving the toe in like this is probably contributing towards the high tyre wear (see below) and the temps I just mentioned above. If you want to reduce this, or just to get better potential performance at the cost of the handling being a bit more unstable, move the geometry settings all the way to the left (LLLL), like lots of wheel based setups seem to do.

Intermediate Conditions – Light rain is more manageable than heavy rain, but I’d add some more spacing to the wings, putting them 3 or 4 clicks apart for better stability (I’d use something like 18/22). Use minimum On Throttle Diff if not already, and raise your Off Throttle Diff by 2 clicks or 10 points to 60. All designed to reduce rotation and providing better stability for easier traction on corner exit.

Full Wet Conditions – For heavy rain races, it’s really tricky round here with some of the traction zones, so more adjustments are usually needed. Add a bunch of wing, and I’d use 5 clicks spacing for stability (something like 30/35). Off Throttle Diff at 60 or 65, plus I’d also add even more front and rear toe (something like 0.05/0.15). Also raise the ride height 3-5 clicks from the dry setup. And be super careful and nuanced on throttle and steering inputs.

(update – I was actually terrible in the full wet quali session I had here using this setup but with 17/22 wings as the race was dry, so take my wet recommendation with a pinch of salt. Having said that, the AI seem far too over-powered in the wet on F1 25, and I’ve found the same as lot of players have – good pace in the dry but terrible when it comes to the wet using the same AI level. So it may also be an AI calibration issue where they’re too difficult in the wet compared to the dry – consider dropping the AI level 10-15 clicks for any wet sessions to balance it back up again).

Bonus Racing Tips

Here’s some extra tips and considerations for racing round Silverstone.

ERS (Qualifying) – You’ve got a decent allowance of ERS Overtake to use on Qualifying laps, but not as much as other tracks and it does run out if deployed consistently. You can still use it on all the medium and long straights, aiming to have maybe 20-30% of your ERS meter left as you come out of the esses and onto the Hangar Straight.

Tyre Wear/Strategy – Wear is quite high here with all the high speed corners stressing the front left tyre especially. Here are the wear rates I found:

• Soft – 8-8.5% per lap
• Medium – 5.5% per lap
• Hard – 4.5% per lap

For 25% races, you could try a short blast on the softs and quickly pit onto the hards, as the hard and medium tyres seem to deliver quite similar lap times in my testing at least. For 50% races, it’s a 2 stop strategy probably using the mediums and hard, unless you’re a god on managing tyre wear. A 1 stop would be a strong strategy as the pit stop time loss is huge at Silverstone and you could jump a bunch of cars doing one less stop, but the tyre management and traction would be very tricky towards the end of each stint.

Tricky Corners – I usually find there’s two specific corners or sections that get progressively more tricky as the tyres wear. The first is the  sharp turn 4 left hander that exits onto turn 5 and then the first DRS straight. The second is the turn 17 right hander just before you finish the lap. For these corners, try to be progressively slightly more cautious and progressive on the throttle as stints go on. I’ve also tried to help with my setup providing easier traction and a more planted feel.

Avoid Damage – The pit lane and therefore the pit stop time loss here is painfully long – like 30+ seconds. Therefore, while it’s true on all tracks, this is really a track where you don’t want to be damaging your front wing at the start and needing to pit in the early laps. In competitive leagues and 50% races, it’s going to basically ruin your race. So be extra cautious at the start here and keep your front wing safe

ERS and Defending (Race) – ERS drains super quick here and gets harder to recharge once you go below 50% (which can happen quickly even if you think you’re being careful and cautious with it). Therefore it’s really just short bursts as and when needed along the two main DRS zones to try and hold position, but it’s hard if the cars are much faster and you might have to give up position sometimes so you can recharge in another car’s DRS zone.