This has actually been a concern for career mode players in the last few F1 games (on F1 22 and F1 2021). Sometimes, some of the later brake upgrades completely changed the handling of the car, to the point where it completely ruined it for some semi or no assists players and they wish they had never done that upgrade and want to reverse it.

Do we have the same problem on the latest F1 23 game? Do the brake upgrades in the chassis department also spoil the car’s handling on this year’s game as well? That’s what we’re going to cover here in this quick guide. In quick terms, it’s better news this year, though not completely resolved.

The first two R&D brake upgrades on F1 23 career mode are generally fine, though no assists users may have to reduce brake pressure slightly to avoid locking. The final two brake upgrades are entirely optional and down to personal preference.

In other words, the way these upgrades affect the handling seems to have been modified a little on F1 23 to make it less disruptive. But of all the upgrades, these are among the least important for overall performance and can be skipped anyway if you want.

When Happens When You Upgrade The Brakes On F1 23?

The brakes upgrades are contained within the green Chassis department of your career R&D menu:

Here’s a rundown of the first two brake upgrades:

• Brake Disc Width – Minor upgrade that improves stopping performance a little.
• Pad Material – Another minor upgrade that again improves braking power a little.

These two upgrades are generally fine to do, and won’t affect handling that much, especially for players that already have the ABS assist on. If you do run ABS off, you may have to reduce brake pressure slightly from the usual of 100% to 95% or so, to avoid locking up during braking (see here for an example of this from a YouTuber).

But it’s not a disaster like it was for some players on F1 2021 and F1 22. You might just have to modify your setup very slightly. ABS assist users can probably just carry on as normal, but take advantage of the even shorter stopping distance, being able to brake later in corners.

Just be aware of the stronger stopping power potentially taking off too much speed in corners (around some tracks, keeping up minimum speed is important for lap times and having brakes that are too strong can hinder this).

The last two brake upgrades do have more impact, and are optional.

Here’s what one commenter on YouTube mentioned of them when I engaged with them on this topic:

“They don’t necessarily ruin the car but you have to constantly adapt to an increasing brake force. I never upgrade them, the AI is pretty weak on corner entry anyway”

YouTube commenter

And that pretty much sums it up – the brake upgrades are really not that important and you can take them or leave them anyway. If you upgrade everything else and leave the brake upgrades entirely alone, you’ll still have a very strong car that can fight for race wins as long as you set the right AI level.

A Strategy To Test The Brake Upgrades On F1 23 Career

There is a way around this problem if you’re unsure – you need to time the brake upgrades carefully to coincide with R&D regulation changes, which gives you essentially a risk free way of testing whether they suit you.

Every few years in the F1 game career modes, there’s a Regulation Change, which makes all upgrades in one or two of your departments obsolete, meaning they have to be re-purchased. You need to wait for one of these to come around that affects the green Chassis department, and use this as your risk free opportunity to test them.

Here’s what you do:

1. Wait for a Chassis R&D reset to be announced
2. Purchase all the brake upgrades you haven’t purchased yet immediately (they become obsolete and you have to repurchase them again the next season, but it’s a safe way to test them)
3. For the remainder of that season, test out the upgrades to see if you like them. You might find the brake upgrades are fine to a certain point, but say the third or fourth one, you really don’t like. Note down what you find.
4. Any brake upgrades you don’t like, simply do not repurchase/protect them under the regulation change. This means you lose them, and therefore their effect is undone for the next season.
5. Then simply leave that upgrade completely alone for the remainder of your career, never purchasing it.

Therefore, you’re basically just using the regulation changes that come around every few years in career mode to undo any brake upgrades you don’t like and revert back to handling you’re more comfortable with.