That's true in my case considering I'm running the AI at 65. If I cranked that up to max they'd be faster than me with flattened wings down the straights by some margin.The cars also get faster through the seasons of course. It's a much better car in season four than it is in season one. More power, less drag, much better aero. You can improve battery charge capacity and how well it is regulated under use. The cars get lighter and even your DRS can be improved to provide more gain when deployed. Fuel efficiency, tire wear.

And that improvement makes me gradually reduce AI strength over time to keep the balance right. You can tweak this before each race if needed. For me it's all about finding that balance, trying to put my car in the right spot in the order based on it's performance. The team mate is the best barometer I think. In this year's version I find that it's very difficult to make gains outside of pace. At the start, in the pits, tire strategy. All of this is quite even between me and the AI. I've been getting better starts since I switched to formation lap as I think I'm getting the tires and brakes in a better window than when you skip the formation lap. But even then maybe I'll pick up two spots at most by turn two. Just as likely to lose two spots as well.

I also can't see the AI set ups. I don't know what aero they're running. There are some tracks, especially in the first couple of seasons, where it's very difficult/not possible to fend them off on the longest straights. But like I talked about earlier I can't say if this is due to how much wing we're running or better aero package, or their ICE/KERS being better developed, or if they've got a bit of boost from the devs. In the end it's sort of a non-issue since you can tweak how fast they go. But finding that perfect spot is not easy, and constantly shifting in career mode.

Even at 65 AI, the lap times are somewhat faster than the real-life times we are seeing in Formula 1. And that gap increases each season as the cars are refined.

Thanks for review.

I'll monitor in a few months to see if EA tweaks AI, but it's good to know there's a workaround.

There's also an 'adaptive AI' setting that I've ignored as I don't think that's the direction I want to go. But others may find it better?

Random update as I'm now in season 4 of my second My Team career. This one I started from the lowest rung, but now by the third round of season 4 our car sits second on the performance chart. So I've gotten a bit more mileage out of it, not the dominant car yet.

I set a couple of limitations to try and preserve the competition level.

-- Signed a F2 driver. And kept him. In the past I usually upgrade for season two when I've the funds to afford a better driver. In this career Piastri was my first team mate, but he rejected his contract offer at season's end because we were the worst car on the grid. Karma's a b!tch and he now sits at the bottom of the table driving for Haas. You should have shown some faith and loyalty mate. Quite realistic, isn't it? haha Pourchaire has been my second driver since Piastri left.

-- Did not upgrade the personnel department to prevent the boosts to the second driver's stats. The aim is to limit how fast he will go when our car is top. I did first level only, and no upgrades beyond this.

-- Only took level 1 perk for boosting my resource point generation (10% boost). Level 2 is 25% and level 3 is 50% which is a huge boost that lets the player outpace the AI by some margin on car development. By limiting myself here I get fewer points which translates in to fewer upgrades and longer development cycle to keep our car from getting too good, too fast.

Even with these moves, we are still worst to nearly first inside four seasons. We started with nothing. No money, lowest possible infrastructure levels. No acclaim. Nothing. That has helped to extend the climb to the top, but still we'll be there in four years.

A couple weeks back I started picking up this sim again, making sure I got the achievement for running a clean time trial lap at every track. But this was still F1 22 and decided I'd pick up F1 23 when it went on sale. And the next day it did! So I picked it up and gave it a go. It is currently 60% off on Steam.

Whether you should or not is a difficult question, as at first glance it does not look like there's all that much different when it comes to the racing sim side. Most changes are in the things I don't care about, like the F1 World stuff.

I started a new career, taking Ocon's seat. On the track the sim is as good as ever, and it feels like the car physics and handling are refined. So much so that for the first time in the series I am using zero aids. I had been running medium TC and ABS in F1 22. But in F1 23 I find the cars more sure-footed, and I have a better feel of the tarmac, I can feel the edge of adhesion through the wheel. For me this is a big deal, and even though I've only completed one race weekend, my early impression is this edition has the most accessible physics yet.

Of course with the new game comes the season's new stuff. Las Vegas, Qatar, new liveries and drivers, new driver ratings. The trailers suggest there are more mistakes in the AI drivers, more variability but we will see about that. No wrecks or flags in my first race, only a single mechanical retirement for Lando, which is just how the '22 races went, so we'll see if anything has actually changed.

Career mode and My Team both return, but essentially the same as before as far as I can tell. F1 World is revamped but so far who cares. They have buried time trial here so I will be involved, but not much interest. Maybe it will grow on me.

I've now bought the last four Codies F1 sims on the bounce. That is as good an endorsement as I can make.

Ah well I buy one every two years, and on sale. I still think it's a few too many, there is little difference in the overall experience, and I don't take the time to play them seriously anyway, only playing "this week's real life GP" when I'm on holiday. Having enough titles allows to maximize the chance to have the track available, if it's a return (like turkey recently). If it's a whole new track, well... just play another one.

Fun thing is I stil have F1 2011 permanently installed, when I switch the others after buying the new one. Older F1 was less complicated , had better sounding engines, and as far as graphics go there has been relatively little improvement since 2011 compared to the increased harware capabilities.

Speaking of less complicated cars, I'd love to play a F1 anthology that doesn't require too much fiddling with files, and has good enough graphics. I think rfactor2 is good candidate due to so many mods available, but is it immersive enough playing F1 ? I've read somewher that controller setup is a nightmare, and I like to play with my xbox controller when I don't feel like moving the wheel stand around.

Apparently, f1 23 will be free to play on Steam the weekend of the Vegas GP if I’m correctly informed. My interest in it is non exist so personally won’t bother. I also have a couple of older iterations of the franchise and I really don’t feel the urge to install them.

I like the anthology aspect you mention rollnlop, rf2 or maybe even good old rF1. AC also has many fine full mods depicting F1 over several seasons, even pre-1950. AMS1 and 2 have received some mods/skins to complement the stock content.

AI might be an issue though.

You guys don't know what you're missing

For the first time ever I had a red flag in a race. It was round three at Miami in the rain, Bottas got out of shape in the chicane before the backstraight and some cars piled up. Pretty cool, since I had created a nice gap under green, but now we had a standing restart. It all got tossed about just like real life races.

F1 23 has made big improvements in the time it takes to move between sessions in a career. Very fast now, and I hope it doesn't grow longer the deeper in to the career I go. But race events are now much faster. I run a full weekend, all free practices, quali and the race plus sprint if applicable, and those longer loading times in the previous editions could really slow things down. Game runs super smooth and looks great.

Four DRS zones in Australia was neat.

Driver and car ratings reflect some mid-point in the season it feels like. McLaren are far better than they were at the start of 2023. Red Bull have a massive gap on the performance charts. Alpha Tauri are the slowest car on the grid.

But of course this all changes, as the teams rise and fall over the seasons. One of my favorite aspects of this series. I've talked about it before, but in every other racing sim, the fastest car when you first play the sim, is the fastest car four years later when you've dropped 1000 hours. The Lotus is still the fastest car in GPL and it's been 25 years! But in this sim the performance hierarchy is fluid and that's super cool.

Glad you enjoy it DBond, let's see what F1 24 brings

Thanks, yeah, it's fun. I think the career modes in this sim are the best in sim racing. Runs great, looks fab, sounds amazing.

I still get such a kick out of being able to talk to my race engineer and swap strategy on the fly.

Very little not to like about this one.

And I get my first crack at Vegas shortly. That should be a trip.

Vegas was cool. Not a bad track, certainly not as bad as I thought it would be. Fine to drive, and not a bad racing circuit.

I had dismissed the new revamped F1 World content in F1 23. But now that I've done some of it it's not so bad. Having some fun running the different events.

For the first time in the series I am having wheel issues. I use a Thrustmaster T248. I'm having trouble with inconsistent FFB. Sometimes it drops completely, sometimes I lose spring strength and damper so the wheel feels too light or even spins freely. I want a heavy wheel. Seems to work OK after a reboot, but at any point it can drop or have problems. I hope to find a fix for this. Fooled with settings last night but it didn't stop the troubles.

I ran two seasons of a standard career, driving for Alpine alongside Gasly. Now I'll give My Team a shot and start from the bottom rung.

Practice cancelled due to manhole cover problems.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/sports/mo...ef55715b90347d4ac1c3da20d3ed6ad&ei=7