The R&D development of the car is crucial to stay competitive in all the recent F1 game career modes, whether My Team or Driver career. But you’re given a massive amount of choice of component upgrades to buy over 4 departments – Aerodynamics (blue), Chassis (green), Engine (red) and Durability (yellow).

It’s important to note though that your R&D path is more controlled and prescribed on F1 24 than on previous games, in the sense that certain upgrade paths are only unlocked once you do certain other upgrades first. Also, your team mate can also choose their own upgrades this year – it’s not just you doing them. Therefore you’ve less resources points to play with, plus the your team mate might push the car development in a path you might not have if you were 100% in control of it like on previous games.

However, it’s still possible to push your upgrades in a certain general direction in favour of other directions, and in this guide I’ll try and provide a roadmap to what you need to spend your resources points on first, to get the best results.

I’m going to be ranking all the R&D components/upgrades on F1 24 (and the previous few games as well) from MOST important to least important.

Here’s a bottom line list of THE most critical upgrades to buy as soon as possible:

• Engine Power
• Chassis Weight
• Drag Reduction
• Front & Rear Wing Aero
• ICE, Gearbox and MGU-H (Durability)

In other words, it’s all about making the car as light and fast as possible in a straight line, above all else. Everything else takes a lesser priority on the ’24 game, as speed on the straights is what you need to stay competitive with the AI.

Now let’s explain why.

Focusing on increasing engine power and reducing drag and car weight in career mode

F1 25 Update – For the new F1 25 game, all the information in this existing guide still applies, except I’d also bump up Energy Recovery System (ERS) from Moderately to Most Important upgrades, for the simple reason that ERS depletes much faster on the F1 25 game and is harder to recoup in a stock/default car. Upgrading your ERS (you have to do some standard Engine Power upgrades first to unlock) allows you to recharge ERS faster and therefore use it more each lap in races.

The Most Important Car Upgrades

These are the components/sections of your R&D map that you ideally need to upgrade first, as they have the biggest impact on car performance.

Let’s add some more detail to understand why:

Engine Power (Engine) – AI straight line speed is already fast to begin with (has been for the last few F1 games), and also gets even more insane as they develop their cars. Therefore, you need to upgrade engine power within the Engine section as quickly as possible to stay competitive on the straights. If you leave it, you’ll find yourself getting driven past on the straights by the AI like you’re not even there, and this is even more true on the ’24 game with the insanely powerful and fast recouping ERS.

Car Weight (Chassis) – Upgrade this in the green Chassis department also as soon as possible, as the stock car especially in My Team career is quite heavy and reduces speed. Also so in Driver career but less pronounced. Get the car weight down as soon as possible for more nimble handling and better lap times.

Drag Reduction (Aero) – Again crucial for staying competitive on the straights – you need every straight line speed advantage you can get against these AI as soon as possible. Reducing drag makes a car more “slippery” in a straight line and harder to overtake. Try to get this upgraded in the blue Aero department ASAP (but this upgrade path does seem to be largely locked on ’24 until you do other aero stuff first).

Some Durability Components – The rate of wear on engine components has been massively toned down on the ’24 game, so it’s a bit more manageable. However, with a 24 race calendar, on a stock career mode car you’ve still got 3 of the components wearing at a rate that would necessitate 2 or 3 replacements (and grid drops) during a season if you just left them. Therefore, aim to get 1 or 2 upgrades done on the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), Gearbox (wears the most), and MGU-H. These are the parts that wear quickest; the other parts aren’t so bad. Definitely get a gearbox upgrade nailed on quickly, as you need to do this to unlock any other Durability upgrades. Use any low qualifying positions early in a season to install fresh components as well.

This top priority section is more sparse than it was for the ’23 game, simply because it literally is all about engine power and straight line speed to ward off the insanely fast in a straight line AI.

Moderately Important Car Upgrades

Now here’s the stuff that definitely useful, but not quite top priority as the engine power was.

ERS System (Engine) – Was top priority last year, but less so this year because the ERS power boost is very powerful and depletes very quickly, but also recoups very quickly this year. Therefore it’s less of an urgent upgrade, since you can keep using and recovering ERS lap after lap much easier on ’24, even on a stock car. For sure, you can bolt on an early upgrade or two to boost recovery even more, but it’s not as critical as previous years (update – as mentioned above, this upgrade becomes one of the top priorities if you’re playing F1 25, to get your ERS system recharging faster).

Front/Rear Wings (Aero) – Downforce is king in F1, so absolutely get the Font and Rear aero upgrades done in the blue section when you get chance, especially for high downforce, twisty tracks. But under the current Hybrid formula, engine power is even more critical. Try to balance out the wing updates though, so you update both the front/rear wing together, so they arrive on the same date, so you don’t have imbalances in the car handling.

Other Durability Components – We already covered the 3 main wearing parts above. The other 3 components – Turbo Charger, MGU-K and Energy Store – wear less and are therefore a bit less urgent regarding upgrades. If you’re already qualifying at the back early on, use these races to take fresh components for all parts, as this gives you some breathing space to get Durability upgraded and the penalties won’t affect your position much anyway if you’re already towards the back (use the “+” sign on your Vehicle tab to add fresh components to your allocation).

Weight Redistribution (Chassis) – Again a crucial aspect of can handling in the green Chassis section. Does give a good boost to can handling, especially cornering, stability and balance, so aim to get these updates on the car when the critical ones are done

DRS (Aero) – Again helps with straight line speed, which is so crucial on these last few F1 games. Can help you maintain position when in “DRS trains” in races, plus overtake more effectively. If you leave this one behind, again you’ll find the AI harder to overtake, plus blasting past you on straights.

Tyre Wear (Chassis) – Can come in useful especially if you do 35% or 50% races, to get longer stints on tyres. Upgrading this can be the difference between doing Medium-Hard or Soft-Hard strategies, and being able to do Soft-Medium strats in longer races. Or the difference between needing 2 stops and 1 stop. Not mission critical in my experience, but a useful upgrade for sure.

Less Important Car Upgrades

Now let’s cover the less important, less impactful upgrades that you can get to later, once you’ve got the more crucial ones down:

Other Durability Upgrades – The 3 remaining components – MGU-K, Turbo and Energy Store – also wear out, but less than the above 3. Try upgrading these when you can to basically even out all your components (so that all parts in a “set” reach end of life at the same time, and you just move to the next set on your engine tab). The MGU-K might sometimes need a bit more urgent attention – keep an eye on comparative wear rates of the parts and upgrade to get them roughly equal wear rates.

Fuel Efficiency (Engine) – Another useful update, but not mission critical. Allows you to run less fuel in the car for slightly lower weight. Fuel efficiency already seems decent to begin with though, so get to this when you can. Moving through the upgrades can allow you to start with zero extra fuel, or even minus, as opposed to plus 1 lap.

Brake Upgrades (Chassis) – Pretty much last on the your to-do list for R&D. You can take them or leave them and some players don’t even bother with them (more on this below).

Boosting Certain R&D Using Specialists

F1 24 has a new feature where you can use the Specialists Tab to complete (usually pretty easy) objectives to boost R&D in certain areas that you want to develop faster.

Be sure to visit this tab before each race weekend, to select objectives from each available specialist. You slowly build up faster, more reliable or cheaper development in the chosen category after completing several objectives.

You can focus on any area you want, but I’d personally pick one of the following:

• Strategy – Purple one of the right hand side. I always set this to Primary when available, since leveling up this one gives you more resources points from the practice programmes.
• Power Unit – Better and faster engine development if you level up in this section.