The way the AI worked on the F1 22 game – both the speed and general behavior of them – was one of the fans biggest gripes with the last game. Have EA/Codemasters improved it for the latest F1 23 edition? Are the AI any better on this new game? Any quicker or slower? Any better race-craft than least year?

Actually, so far it appears to be good news for people thinking of buying the game. The AI are massively improved on F1 23, with improved coding and behaviour, and are a lot more fun to race against. The overall speed is quite similar to F1 22, but they are far less likely to cause collisions or crashes on this year’s game.

In other words, the developers do seem to have listened to the audience and toned down on the aggressiveness of the AI for F1 23, making them easier to race against and more cautious and measured in the way they race with human players.

Let’s break down the issue more, examining some of the major factors of AI behaviour, and whether it’s changed for F1 23 versus the last game.

Are The AI Any Faster On F1 23? (vs F1 22)

This might be surprising, but in terms of actual raw speed and lap times, the AI are actually quite similar on F1 23 to F1 22. In other words, whatever AI difficulty level you were using on F1 22, is probably  a good baseline to start with on F1 23 as well (see our guide on using practice and qualifying sessions to find your own optimum AI level to use on the new game).

Yes, the AI can still have insane straight line speed and acceleration, especially on the higher 100-110 difficulty levels (see here for a help guide if you’re struggling with this).

However, despite this, the AI are still easier to race against overall, because the way they behave has been modified to make them better to race against. Some of the most annoying things the AI did on F1 22 have now been toned back or removed, so they are more fun to compete against despite being roughly the same speed.

Let’s now look at some of these other improved factors in the AI coding that make them overall better on this year’s game, despite having roughly the same speed/lap time.

The Improved General Race-Craft And Etiquette Of The AI On F1 23

This is really the biggest improvement in the AI that does mean they’re better to race against on this year’s game.

Here are some ways they’re improved on F1 23:

• They no longer turn in on you like you aren’t there, like they did on F1 22. They actually leave proper racing room. They will squeeze you a little bit heading into an apex, but will ultimately give you proper racing room.
• The AI will back out more often and with more “common sense” that a real person would have. They don’t keep their nose in there so long when it would obviously cause a crash.
• Related to this, there isn’t quite so much of this silly “try and overtake every corner” AI logic that there was on ’22, where they’d be trying to stick their nose alongside your car every single corner. Now, they back out sooner.
• There’s far less of this barging into you and knocking you off the track like they did on ’22. Again, they leave more room and stay on their part of the track instead of randomly coming over into your part of the track and barging you off.
• They don’t do those idiotic “sends” or “divebombs” from way back, again barging into you and effectively using your car as a brake to stop their car. There’s much less of that on F1 23 – the AI are more cautious and reserved in the overtakes they go for.

Overall, the AI have been coded on F1 23 to be far less aggressive and more respectful when racing, and there isn’t so much contact and barging that there was on F1 22, and you get left the room needed to prevent accidents happening so often.

Update – After 2 months playing the game, I have have some annoying experiences where the AI have still done stupid things and gone for stupid moves. But far less than on F1 22 and it is a lot more fun to race against them. For me, a lot of it was to do with falling behind on development, leading to poor straight line speed, which led me to be vulnerable to the AI running up alongside me and sticking their nose in where it was going to cause a crash. Keep on top of engine and drag reduction upgrades in career mode to prevent some of this.

Race Starts & The AI On F1 23

This was another area of frustration on F1 22 that has thankfully been “nerfed” or pulled back on F1 23. Last year, the AI always got insanely good starts and you’d almost always lose places off the start (I always did).

Now, this has been reduced somewhat so the AI starts are more varied – sometimes they get good ones, sometimes they get poor ones. This, added to the fact that traction is a lot easier for human players on this year’s game, means you can also get better starts than the AI and make up places on the start sometimes if you nail the throttle input (this was next to impossible for most players on F1 22).

Therefore, this is another area where it’s more fun this year – you can sometimes gain off the start instead of always losing. However, be aware that the AI on F1 23 still have this same tendency as last year to sometimes get “stuck together” on race starts and cluster together in a slow moving train that it’s easy to crash into and get wing damage if you’re not careful.

Therefore, you still need to navigate race starts carefully, but it’s a lot fairer this year and you can beat the AI off the line if you get your own start right.

Tyre Temperatures And The AI On F1 23

This is one factor that’s “kind of” better, but still not fully fixed. On F1 22, it was another frustration that we often suffered from colder tyre temperatures coming out the pits, but the AI barely did, and seemed to be able to get up to full speed with new tyres pretty much right away.

This year, it’s been evened up a little bit, but it’s still not totally equal. The AI still seem to have improved tyre warm up versus human players, but our tyre warm up seems to have been boosted and made a little easier. Why can’t the developers just make it identical for both players and AI? It would seem like the better option.

ERS Usage And The AI

This is another area where the AI do continue to be given an artificial advantage over the player. The AI again seem be able to deploy more ERS for longer, and recoup quicker, than human players. It seems pretty similar to ’22 in this regard, perhaps slightly pulled back, but not much.

Again, as with the tyre temps coming out the pits, why don’t they just make it the same between AI and players? It would seem like the most logical option.

But for now, you will have to sometimes accept that the AI will blast past you with a seeming unlimited amount of ERS, especially on higher difficulty levels (finding your correct level that’s not too hard can help with this).

Summary

The bottom line on this is that the AI ARE definitely better on F1 23 than on F1 22, because the really key factor that annoyed us about F1 22 – their general behaviour and racing ability – has been massively improved to make them easier to race against.

Therefore, if the overly aggressive, dodgem style behaviour of the AI on ’22 is what’s making you cautious about buying ’23, this has been fixed and they’re better this year. They’re not perfect, and they’re still hard to beat on raw pace on levels of 100+, and they still have these annoying “boosts” where they don’t suffer the same on certain metrics as human players do.

But they’re at least a lot more fun to race against this year – a challenge, but not such an infuriating one like it was on F1 22.