With F1 24 swiftly cresting the horizon, a new wave of Career Mode features, modes and tactics are here for you to explore. Here are five tips to help you get your Career Mode firing on all cylinders.
Image: EA Sports / Codemasters
The 2024 Formula One season is picking up more and more steam, and F1 24 has launched for those who pre-ordered the Champions Edition already. Naturally, players are looking to dive into the game's various Career Modes - so we have assembled five tips to help you get a good start on the virtual grid.
#1: Find The Right Difficulty
When you create your first Career Mode save game in F1 24, remember to calibrate what difficulty you want. It is no good heading into a season opener with Red Bull and being ten seconds off the back of the pack, nor is it enjoyable to be ten seconds ahead of everyone in an underdeveloped Haas.The difficulty is similar to the system in place for F1 23. The slider ranges from 0 to 110, and certain ranges feature designated difficulty tags:
0-19: Very easy
20-39: Easy
40-59: Medium
60-79: Hard
80-89: Expert
90-94: Master
95-100: Legend
101-110: Ultimate
Valterri Bottas, KICK Sauber F1 24.
Your difficulty can be fine-tuned through single-player one-off Grands Prix. Set yourself five short races on varying tracks (we used Monaco, Silverstone, Melbourne, Canada and Bahrain) and try out the different difficulty settings.
We recommend aiming for AI that is a few tenths faster than you so you have something to work towards. The best indicator for realistic car performance is always your team rival. Depending on your experience with specific tracks or racing in general, your learning curve and lap time improvement will be steeper or flatter.
There is no shame in starting low. Remember, all the career mode has to offer is single-player-based. Do not fall into the trap of being told you have to set the difficulty to max for your achievements to count. Drop the difficulty bar if you are struggling. After all, you are playing the game to have fun... right?
You can also adjust your difficulty setting in between races should you find that you missed the mark with your initial adjustment.
#2: Prioritize R&D / Specialist Goals / Practice Programmes From The Start
Progress - it is what Formula 1 teams thrive on. Without progress and evolution, your journey in F1 24 career mode will be much more difficult than necessary. There are three main avenues for you to progress both your chosen driver and team: R&D upgrades, Specialist goals and free practice session programmes.F1 24 R&D Main Menu
Each third of this trifecta is equally as important as the next, as they all tie into each other. However, your management skills with the lifespan of your physical car parts, as well as team contracts throughout a weekend and a season, will determine how quickly you can progress up the ladder, or how long you can stay at the top.
R&D Upgrades
F1 24 R&D Menu
Perhaps the most in-depth of the three development stages, the R&D web is a complex maze of differing prices, buffs and points. From the powertrain to the aero and everything in between, you and your teammate will develop your car throughout the season to ultimately try and build the most technologically advanced car on the grid in the shortest development time possible and the least number of points spent. Simple, right?
Efforts have been directed at some of the problems with F1 23's R&D web systems while additionally making the car upgrading process less repetitive thanks to new R&D scenarios. These are optional, but selectable each season, and can yield generous rewards, including giving you unlimited money for an upgrade. Ones that can negatively restrict your car development options are also part of the equation, however.
Having multiple car upgrades in development simultaneously and being able to rush the process if necessary are both welcome options to have.
Both drivers can have multiple R&D upgrades developing at once.
Secret car upgrades and a clear number one development driver in the team, decided through on-track form, also debut. This ultimately makes the career mode more personalizable and unpredictable.
Specialist Goals
Throughout your season, you will have a team of part-time Specialists that will come and go for certain rounds. These Specialists have goals and targets for you to hit in a specific session or over the entire weekend as a whole.The goals range from completing a certain number of gear changes in the race to keeping the engine temperature below a certain degree in Practice 2, much more. They even stretch to R&D objectives, adding another level of development-boosting for you and your team to make use of.
Specialists are available throughout your racing season
Do not ignore the Specialists! Having these extra goals and missions to complete not only massively boosts your chance of developing your car, but they also add another layer to your weekend. Practice 3 could suddenly become the difference between getting that major engine upgrade completed for the next round or not.
Practice Programmes
The practice session programmes have undergone significant changes and now fill up a significant chunk of a session, especially whilst completing the race strategy program. This leaves you feeling like you do not have to skip three-quarters of the session after you have completed the practice programme.The programmes consist of three choices, which change depending on difficulty level and driver. They include elements like race strategy, qualifying pace, tyre management or fuel strategy, all with five sub-goals to achieve and gain resource points.
#3: Setups
Compared to most sim racing titles, the setups in F1 24 are rather basic. There are six baseline setups you can freely choose for any of the F1 cars at any of the tracks. Each one allows you to change things like tyre pressures and wing angle.The baseline setups are fairly adaptable. Regardless of which car you are driving and on which track, the baseline setup will do its job and give you a solid base to make you competitive.
Detailed setup menus
Diving into the depths of the detailed setup screens is not a necessity for your Career Mode, especially if you are relatively new to car setups - the presets will serve you just fine. Of course, you can also adjust things to your liking to tune out certain car behaviour if you are a more seasoned virtual mechanic.
If you are not fussed with doing the setups yourself, you can still use custom setups. Simply scroll through the time trial leaderboards and pick a top driver and time. There will be an option to copy their setup exactly so that you can try and replicate their laps. Be warned, though: A lot of the top time trial setups will be useless for racing, as they are purely aimed at maximising one-lap pace. They can be good baseline setups with a few adjustments, however.
#4: Practise Pit Entry & Exit
You may think we have just run out of tips, but its quite the opposite! Practising the pitlane entry and exit, providing you have the assist turned off, is an essential element to your Career Mode. Each track has different pitlane entries and exits. Some are straightforward, but some combinations can be surprisingly difficult to spot and slow down in time.One example of a pitlane exit you might want to practise is the Abu Dhabi tunnel pit exit. Instead of a straightforward rejoin, you go underneath the track in a tunnel and rejoin at high speed. This makes it a potential danger point for almighty crashes and is certainly something you will want to have experience with before subjecting yourself to it in your Career Mode race.
Abu Dhabi's tunnel pit exit on F1 24.
As previously mentioned, there are assists to help you with making sure you are slowing down and engaging your pit limiter. We would suggest starting with these turned on if you are totally new to the series. However, turning it off will give you much more control over your race and give you the reigns to make decisions. Be careful not to get a speeding penalty, however.
#5: Practice Race Starts
Our final tip is to practise your race starts. In a similar vein to the pit entry and exit, it might seem slightly strange to repeat launching your car from its pit box and then restart to do the same thing again. But a good start, especially on street circuits like Monaco or Singapore, is essential to your race and ultimately your season.Starting procedure on F1 24.
There are assists available that hold the clutch for you, however, we would not recommend getting used to these. Getting a good start with the assist proved difficult compared to a manual launch, which can gain you valuable time off the line. The average advantage was around eight tenths - and clawing that back on track can be much more difficult.
Do you have any further Career Mode tips for F1 24? Let us know on X @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
