This was a problem on F1 22 as well, and it’s also being reported sometimes by people playing the latest F1 23 game as well. The AI can seem to be insanely and ridiculously fast on the straights, to the point where it can feel impossible to overtake or defend against them.

This can be especially bad as you move through a career mode on the game. What’s going on and how can we fix it?

The straight line speed of the AI cars has been over-powered on the last few F1 games and is the same on F1 23. The best way around this problem is to set a suitable AI level and upgrade your own car’s straight line speed in career mode.

In other words, you can can’t really get rid of the problem totally, but if you’re smart with car setup and development, you can at least match the straight line speed of the AI to make it easier to compete.

Let’s look at the issue in more detail.

The AI Are Already Fast In A Straight Line Speed To Begin With

It should be said that baseline AI cars you get even when first turn on the game out the box, are pretty fast in a straight line, especially on higher difficulty levels. And that’s before you even get to the problems in career mode, which we’ll cover further below.

Here are some reasons for this:

• Coding – The AI in general are coded to be fast in a straight line, even in GP mode or the default starting cars in career mode. It was the same last year and the developers argue it is necessary for several reasons to keep the AI working properly.
• DRS – The Drag Reduction System overtake aid is also extremely powerful on F1 23, which adds to the already powerful baseline straight line speed.
• ERS – The ERS battery speed boost aid is also very powerful on F1 23, and can massively increase top speed when combined with DRS. You’ll see cars using DRS/ERS together reaching V-Max (top speed) very quickly on longer straights
• Slipstream – A third component to add to the ERS/DRS that’s also quite powerful. A car following another car gets an advantage of the car in front punching a hole in the air and reducing the drag of the chasing car even further.

So you see that whenever these factors combine, you’re going to get cars that are very fast in a straight line to begin with, especially when combining the ERS/DRS/Slipstream all at once.

The AI Straight Line Speed Becomes Even Faster As Career Mode Progresses

If the baseline AI on F1 23 already seem fast in a straight line even to begin with, be aware that they become even faster on the straights as you progress through career mode. If you don’t develop your own car in the correct order (more on this below), you’ll see the AI cars starting to blast past you on the straights like you aren’t even there.

You can have ridiculous scenarios where you’ve got the DRS on the car in front, plus you’re spamming the ERS like crazy, and yet the AI car behind you still manages to breeze past you on the straight and just overtake you like it’s nothing. For sure, I had this problem more on F1 22, but it’s still happening on F1 23, though I would say the AI are overall much improved from ’22.

See this example video from a career mode, where the AI are setting qualifying lap times in 1:07 range around Spain, which is insanely fast even on the new layout, and even with upgraded cars. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of your own similar examples if you’re doing your own career.

The AI do develop insanely fast speed over a few seasons, to the point it isn’t even realistic in terms of the top speeds they reach, or the overall lap times they set (and in fairness, it’s the same for player controlled cars as well once fully upgraded).

Suggestion For Codemasters/EA – If the developers ever read this post, why not make the development and speed of the cars oscillate cyclically rather than simply evolve linearly in one direction only (i.e. faster and faster)? It’s what happens in real life. Every few years, the regulations change, and it usually reduces lap times and the cars have to build back up their pace again. That’s partly why the regulation changes come it; it’s like a battle the FIA has with the teams to stop the cars getting too fast. Why not replicate this in the games? Every few years, there’s a regulation change that shaves off 1-2 seconds of lap time, some teams gain from the change and some lose (like real life) and you build back up from there. It would stop the cars getting too fast as a career evolves, with ridiculous straight line speed and lap times that are unrealistically quick.

Tips For Counteracting Insanely Fast Straight Line AI Speed

The ridiculous straight line speed of the AI cars has been built into the F1 games the last few years, so you can’t really avoid it. Here are a couple of things you can try though, to mitigate and counteract the effect of it as much as possible.

Reduce AI level – A more obvious suggestion that can help a little bit, but AI speed seems to be overpowered for most of the AI levels. But reducing the difficulty slider can reduce cornering speeds, which in turn impacts the AI car’s ability to overtake off corners. See our article on finding your optimum AI difficulty for more on this.

Car development – Be sure to upgrade the areas of your car that improve your own straight line speed and ability to overtake/defend as early as possible in your My Team/Driver career mode. The key components for this are:

• Engine power
• Drag reduction (Aero department)
• Car weight (chassis)
• ERS recovery (Engine)

Get these parts purchased as soon as possible to increase your own straight line speed so you have a better chance of matching, and defending against, the over-powered AI. See our article on the most important/priority R&D upgrades for your career mode for more on this.

Wing levels – It can be useful to tweak your setups a little and optimise them for race pace by dropping the wing levels a few clicks from what might be optimal for pure single lap qualifying pace. This will allow you to overtake/defend a little easier on the straights, and using lower wing levels tends to “come back” to you in the race and be deliver a better overall results than using higher wing levels (see here where we cover this in detail).

Reduce AI Development rate – There’s also an option in career settings where you can reduce the rate at which the AI develop their cars, which can at least slow down the rate at which they increase their straight line speed and give you a chance to catch up with your own car’s R&D.