Codemasters explains F1 25’s extensive car handling changes

F1 24’s new “dynamic handling” was touted by Codemasters as the “most authentic and immersive driving experience ever felt in an F1 title.” Supporting this bold claim, it was even developed with the help of three-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen. However, F1 24’s handling proved to be divisive.  

On release, some prominent F1 game influencers and critics lamented the car’s overly pointy front ends. Excessive grip levels also allowed you to drive over kerbs at high speed without affecting performance. This led to drastic handling changes in patch updates, which pleased professional drivers but alienated some casual players.     

In response to the backlash, Codemasters claims to have made significant improvements to F1 25’s handling.

“There are a lot of things we were able to learn from F1 24”

“You’re right, F1 24 was divisive. We had some holes in the handling model,” F1 25’s Senior Creative Director Lee Mather admitted. “We had big physics updates, but then the actual setup maybe didn’t get the best out of them.”

“There were some holes that the more professional end of the community drew attention to. They were the sort of things that were quite extreme.”

“On the other end of the scale, players were having a great time and really enjoying it. So, there are a lot of things we were able to learn from F1 24 and a lot we still had from F1 23 because it was so well received. There were certain traits and characteristics we wanted to bring back into F1 25.”

“We also had the opportunity in November to get a bunch of esports drivers and content creators on site to give feedback on where we’d got to at that point. And their feedback was consistent across the board, which is good because you can then make actionable updates.”

“Their feedback was that traction needed work and we were also over-gripped and doing lap times that were too quick. Most of us weren’t, but they were because they’re obviously super quick.”

“We’ve done a lot of work resolving some of the concerns with F1 24 and working with players who could give us feedback at that level earlier in the process. The overall brief was to build a car that is stable, predictable and approachable at its base and then let the sim evolve as you race to bring in the more complex difficulties, so weather, tyre wear, pickup on the tyres, fuel changes.

“Someone pointed out they were tearing around happily in qualifying and then went to race, had a full tank of fuel and came to the first corner and the car wouldn’t stop because of the weight difference. Building a stable, easy-to-drive model that then accepts all of those other physics areas that make it a different experience was important.”

Steering in the right direction

“The biggest thing, which we tried to resolve in 24 but maybe obviously fell short on, was that players often say the cars had too much understeer,” Mather continued. “But we know understeer is safe. We wanted to try and resolve that and find a better balance between the mechanical grip and aero grip.”

“You had a similar balance to the car, so you weren’t going to be caught out. You could be confident at low speeds to turn the car in and know what the nose is going to do and you could be confident at high speeds to make those small movements through small corners like Maggots and Becketts and know where the nose is going to go. That’s where we’ve put a lot of effort in.”

Mather adds that returning players will notice changes to the tyre models, inertias for the body tyres and transmission.

“That was more so because the automatic gearbox was a bit ‘shunty’,” Mather said about changes to the transmission. “We found that it was more disruptive for players using it as an assist because it would unsettle the car. We’ve made changes to clutch and transmission as well, amongst many other physics tweaks. But that was the main direction for it.”

F1 25’s handling seems to be heading in the right direction. In our hands-on, the cars felt more balanced and predictable to drive, making it easier to manage understeer, yet we could still lose the back end when pushing too hard.

With Formula 1 appealing to a broad audience, pleasing both casual players and hardcore sim racers is always going to be challenging, but it’s a balance Codemasters hopes to achieve in F1 25.   

“Ultimately, we always think that players want a representation of what a Formula 1 car would be in their mind,” said Mather. “I think that’s where the best racing games in this kind of space excel when a player can jump in that car and relate it to what they’d relate to a Formula 1 car.”