F1 22 was one of the more disappointing editions in the F1 series of games in recent years for most fans. It was too annoying and inconsistent to play for many of us, just not fun at all and a bit of a grind, to the point where a lot of us turned the game off well before it’s life cycle ended (I stopped playing it around early Spring ’23).

Therefore there’s really high hopes that F1 23 will be a improvement, and that’s what we’re going to cover in this article – is F1 23 better than F1 22 to the point that it’s worth buying?

Let’s not waste any time by saying the overall answer is pretty clearly YES – F1 23 is a massive improvement on F1 22, with completely overhauled handling and AI to make for a more enjoyable experience.

But in this article, we’re going to examine all the changes in F1 23 in more detail, looking at what’s better than F1 22, plus what’s about the same.

But the bottom line on this is that no one is saying F1 23 is backwards step from F1 22 – everyone is saying it’s a clear forward step. It’s a better game to play for sure; let’s look at why.

Is The Handling Better On F1 23?

The first of the 2 major gripes fans had with F1 22 was the annoying, inconsistent handling. The good news is that this has been massively improved on F1 23.

Here’s a quick summary of the main changes and improvements:

• Traction is massively easier this year – corner exits are much easier, as are race starts. You can power on the throttle much sooner and more aggressively out of corners without spinning.
• If you do over-apply the throttle, it’s also much easier to catch the car and stop it spinning as well.
• Race starts are also easier because of the easier traction – you can actually sometimes beat the AI off the start on ’23, whereas this was almost impossible on ’22.
• High speed downforce is higher, but low speed grip is a bit lower this year, with overall lap times similar or very slightly slower.
• ERS and DRS are both more powerful, perhaps even too powerful in the launch build. DRS is particularly overpowered, but opinions differ on whether this is good or bad.
• ERS is powerful but runs out more quickly, and is harder to recoup this year, so has to be sparingly used.
• Tyre temperatures are still quite sensitive this year like on ’22, and you can overheat them if you run pressures too high.
• Braking – actually harder this year with longer stopping distances and more tricky braking – you can’t just run 50 brake bias everywhere like you could on ’22. It’s more of a challenge, but a good challenge.
• General weight of the car feels heavier – fuel loads are felt more obviously, braking is harder under heavy fuel, and in general you can “feel” the car more through the handling.
• Both wheel and pad handling improved. Force Feedback more prevalent this year for wheel users. Pad steering sharper and more responsive.
• “Marbles” are now a real thing this year – if you run off the racing line, you can collect discarded rubber and lose grip. Again a good challenge.

See here for our more detailed post on the handling improvement on F1 23 vs ’22, where we cover each aspect in more detail.

Are The AI Better on F1 23?

The second of the major gripes the fans had with F1 22 was the infuriating behavior of the AI. But once again, it’s good news here, as that too has been massively improved and is much better on F1 23.

Here’s a summary of the positive changes here on F1 23:

• In terms of overall speed and lap time, they’re roughly similar on F1 23 than on F1 22. So even experienced players will have to lower the AI difficulty down into the 80s or even the 70s as they did on ’22. However, the overall race-craft of the AI is much improved on ’23, which we’ll cover in the next points.
• The AI no longer turn in you like you aren’t there on F1 23 like they did on ’22 – they actually leave proper racing room.
• They don’t do stupid divebombs from way back as much this year – more sensible and measured with overtakes.
• The AI will still try to squeeze you a little when fighting for a corner, but they will ultimately back out to avoid an accident (on F1 22, they’d just keep their nose in there and cause a collision).
• The collision model is also better on F1 23, and the cars don’t get “stuck together” when they collide in that infuriating way they did on ’22. It’s a better contact model this year.
• Some of the annoying bugs and glitches with the AI that were on ’22, like this weird “mirroring” effect where they’d stay stuck to you and follow you around in practice/quali sessions, seem to have been removed on ’23.

See here for our more detailed article going the AI changes on F1 23 vs ’22.

But the bottom line is that much of the annoying and stupid things the AI did on ’22 to cause collisions, have been either way toned down or removed, so it’s better to race against them for sure this year.

What About The Offline Game Modes? (Career, Braking Point, F1 World)

Regarding the offline games, you’ve got the My Team and Driver careers as always, the Braking Point storyline returning from F1 2021, plus the new F1 World mode. Let’s cover each in turn.

My Team/Driver Career – The standard mode where you either create your own team or drive for an existing one. The menu and R&D system works pretty much exactly the same as F1 2021 and F1 22, so there’s hardly any changes there. It’s just that with the new/modified tracks, plus the much better AI and handling, your experience will be much better playing this than last year. If you’re a career mode fan, I would recommend F1 23, because the game overall is much more fun to play this year.

Braking Point – Returns from F1 2021, where you’ve got the Aiden Jackson character and Konnersport team. Is a decent game mode with about 7-8 hours of play through time, plus excellent dialogue and cut scenes. But you wouldn’t really buy a new game at top price just for a single game mode, even if it wasn’t on F1 22. Also, as with the F1 World mode we’re about to cover, the launch version of Braking Point is far too easy on F1 23 for experienced players. You’ll be competing some of the objectives without really breaking a sweat if you’ve played these games before and have half decent pace. May be patched, but right now doesn’t cater to experienced players (see here for more detailed info on Braking Point).

F1 World – This is a brand new feature designed more for super causal or brand new players who want bite-size challenges to ease them into the game. You’re thrown into a series of mostly short (5 lap) events with a certain objective (eg. start 20th, finish 10th or better), and as you complete these events, you’re able to upgrade your “Tech Level” to make the car faster, plus other rewards. These events also refresh daily, so in theory, it’s a great idea to keep things fresh for players with constantly new mini-challenges.

Unfortunately, the release version of this mode has turned out to be a let down for more experienced players with any kind of higher skill level. Put simply, it’s far too easy, to the point where it’s not a challenge and is actually quite boring for experienced players who have a decent speed level. It can get harder after a few hours, but most players aren’t going to slog through several hours being bored just to get the difficulty where it needs to be. See some good videos here and here where Alex Gillon tested the game mode out for around 5 hours, at no point being challenged or engaged, because the difficulty level is far too easy. They’ve catered only to brand new players at low skill level, and not to their experienced fan base with this game mode, so it can’t be recommended unless patched to make it challenging for all.

Verdict – Not really worth buying at full price for the Braking Point or F1 World modes, which are too easy or not in depth enough to warrant a $60-80 price tag. The standard career modes are pretty much the same as F1 2021/22, but because of the much improved handling and AI, could be worth it if that’s your main mode of playing.

Is The Online Multiplayer Better On F1 23?

This was another mini gripe with F1 22, with the completely broken Crossplay and other bugs in the online that seem to keep reappearing year on year.

But the good news is that so far at least, F1 23 seems to be a small step in the right direction for online multiplayer. It seems to be a lot more stable and bug free than F1 22.

Early access Premium Edition players first trying the online out a couple of days before the main release day found the online to be really good, really stable and good to play, with only very minor screen freezes and lags even on the Crossplay, where you can race with players on other console platforms.

However, as more people started to join the online as more players got started with the game, some more freezes and issues started showing up. But overall, the feedback is that it’s still better in the early days than F1 22, plus patches always come out in the first few months to make it more stable.

Basically, the mean problem is still screen freezes when someone joins or leaves the session.

The Crossplay does work better than last year, but honestly, it’s probably never going to be possible to get a cross-platform connection good enough for really serious league racing. It will probably remain a feature to casual gamers who aren’t too bothered about some lag and freezing.

For more serious racing, you’re best off disabling Crossplay and only racing against people on the same platform (there’s an option to do this when you first start the game up). Same platform multiplayer definitely seems better, and I’ll update this section as more feedback and patches come out.

However, there a huge issue for online league players that has been identified whereby tyre wear is not equal even on the “Equal cars” settings – we wait for a patch to fix this but is still on the game up to and including the 1.06 version. But serious league racing can’t happen until this is fixed, and also until an Anti-cheat system is available, which is being created, but isn’t on the launch game version.

Any New Tracks On F1 23?

This is a nice addition to this year’s game – you’ve got a few changes, and they’re all positive.

Reprofiled Spain – That annoying “mickey mouse” chicane in the last sector has been removed and it’s been reverted back to the 2 fast (almost flat) right handers like they had before 2007. Much better and more flowing – good fun to drive.

Qatar – My personal favorite new track by far – love it! Loads of high speed, sweeping corners. A really satisfying track to get right. Gona really enjoy racing on this one. Only one really slow speed hairpin – everything else is medium to high speed.

Las Vegas – I think opinions might be mixed on this one, but for me, it’s more a “meh” track. Lots of medium straights with hairpins or left-right-left sections at the end of them, plus one super long back straight that feels even longer than the one at Baku. Looks great visually but I’m not a huge fan of the track just yet. Maybe it will grow on me. With the overpowered DRS/ERS, there will be lots of overtaking on the long straight (update – I actually quite enjoyed my first career race there much more than I expected. Slowly growing on me – the racing can be fun with the massive straight and how powerful DRS/ERS is).

Reprofiled Singapore – Slight changes in real life where the fiddly section under the grandstand in sector 3 has been removed and it’s now a straight line. Makes it more flowing and high speed. But the launch version only has the old circuit – the revised layout is expected to be added in the patch later.

Extra tracks – You’ve also got 3 additional recent tracks – China (meant to be on ’23 calendar but cancelled), plus Portgual and France (not on calendar in ’23 but were recently used). You can add these any career, GP or online season, so you’ve got an excellent selection of 25 tracks to use this year, which is great.

2021 Comparison – For players who never got F1 22 and just stuck with F1 2021, if you switch to F1 23, the extra/updated tracks you get are: Miami, Las Vergas, Qatar, Modified Australia, Modified, Spain, Modified Abu Dhabi.

Any Bugs On F1 23?

Unfortunately, there do seem to be quite a few bugs on the release version of F1 23 as there were right through the life cycle of F1 22. Perhaps not quite as many as on ’22, but still quite a few.

See the last third of this video for a good rundown of some of the bugs still present on the new game. I don’t want to go into massive detail on it, but here are 2 things about this that are disappointing:

The Red Flags feature – a brand new thing for this game – doesn’t work and is bugged on the release version. Really disappointing for a heavily promoted new feature to not work properly. If a race is red flagged, you get demoted around half a minute further back than you should be. Needs disabling until patched (update – now patched – see our guide on red flags on F1 23 for more info).

Same bugs – A lot of the bugs are recurring from F1 22 and previous games. Has been a frustration of mine for 6-7 years with these F1 games – the same bugs keep reappearing in game after game without being permanently fixed. One example I just ran into now is the Qualifying Programs in Career Mode being basically unbeatable – was in ’22 and hasn’t been fixed. Also, you’ve got the same problem as in ’21 and ’22, whereby whenever you replace an engine part in career, you immediately get a failure of that or another part in the next race – turn failures off until patched.

We can hope and expect that these problems will be patched in the next few months, but as per usual with these F1 games, the amount of bugs is a bit annoying, despite being much more fun to play overall than last year.

Summary – Is It Worth Buying F1 23?

We’ve covered a lot here, but let’s try to boil it down to a few simple criteria on whether F1 23 is really better than F1 22, and when it is (and isn’t) worth getting it.

Overall, F1 23 is definitely a much better game than F1 22, when all factors are taken into account.

However, whether you’d fork out for the game at full price depends on what you’re playing now, plus what you want out of your F1 games.

Overall, I’d suggest F1 23 is NOT worth buying:

• Solely for the Braking Point or F1 World modes. Not enough depth and challenge there, at least not on release. Perhaps for total newbies to F1 games, but not experienced fans.
• If you’re already enjoying yourself on F1 2020 or F1 2021, and don’t demand an up to date game with latest drivers/tracks etc. Enjoy what you’re playing and perhaps wait for the price to come down.

However, I’d suggest F1 23 IS worth buying if:

• You were really annoyed and disappointed with the handling and AI on F1 22, and want something better this year (both things are MUCH better on F1 23).
• You want a game that’s better to race against AI and other players, with a better contact model
• You’re a career mode specialist (mode is largely the same, but you’ll have MUCH more fun on it because of the better handling and AI).
• You like up to date and new tracks (revamped Barcelona, plus Qatar (amazing) and Las Vegas (OK), plus France, Portugal and China as extra as well). Great selection.