The R&D development of the car is crucial to stay competitive in all the recent F1 game career modes, whether My Team or Driver career. But you’re given a massive amount of choice of component upgrades to buy over 4 departments – Aerodynamics (blue), Chassis (green), Engine (red) and Durability (yellow).

To a newcomer, it can all be overwhelming and confusing, and you might be accumulating all these Resource Points in practice sessions, but not know what to spend them on. What upgrades are the most important and critical for you to get on the car as early as possible in career mode on the F1 games, for the best performance boost? Which parts of the car should you upgrade first?

That’s what we’re going to cover in this guide, ranking all the R&D components/upgrades on F1 23 (and the previous few games as well) from MOST important to least important.

Here’s a bottom line list of THE most critical upgrades to buy as soon as possible:

• Engine Power
• Chassis Weight
• Drag Reduction
• ERS System
• Durability (especially Gearbox, ICE & MGU-H)
• Front & Rear Wing Aero

Now let’s explain why.

The Most Important Car Upgrades

These are the components/sections of your R&D map that you ideally need to upgrade first, as they have the biggest impact on car performance.

Let’s add some more detail to understand why:

Engine Power (Engine) – AI straight line speed is already fast to begin with (has been for the last few F1 games), and also gets even more insane as they develop their cars. Therefore, you need to upgrade engine power within the Engine section as quickly as possible to stay competitive on the straights. If you leave it, you’ll find yourself getting driven past on the straights by the AI like you’re not even there.

Car Weight (Chassis) – Upgrade this in the green Chassis department also as soon as possible, as the stock car especially in My Team career is quite heavy and reduces speed. Also so in Driver career but less pronounced. Get the car weight down as soon as possible for more nimble handling and better lap times.

Drag Reduction (Aero) – Again crucial for staying competitive on the straights – you need every straight line speed advantage you can get against these AI as soon as possible. Reducing drag makes a car more “slippery” in a straight line and harder to overtake. Try to get this upgraded in the blue Aero department ASAP.

ERS System (Engine) – Again is a crucial component on the F1 23 game especially, because the ERS power boost is very powerful, but also depletes very quickly and is hard to recover on baseline cars. Upgrading ERS Recovery helps you to recoup ERS better and use it more in races, which is crucial for lap times and defending against being overtaken with the aggressive and insanely fast-in-a-straight-line AI.

Durability – This is a huge frustration early on in both career modes – some of the components wear out at an insanely fast rate. Especially bad are the Gearbox (insane wear), Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) and MGU-H components. The others also wear but slightly less. Aim to upgrade the durability of these 3 as much as possible, as engine parts are very limited over a season and you’ll have to take grid penalties for new parts. If you’re already qualifying at the back early on, use these races to take fresh components for all parts, as this gives you some breathing space to get Durability upgraded and the penalties won’t affect your position much anyway if you’re already towards the back (use the “+” sign on your Vehicle tab to add fresh components to your allocation).

Aero Wings (sometimes) – I put this mostly in the moderate priority section below, but if you find yourself getting destroyed at the more twisty circuits like Spain, Monaco, Hungary, Singapore, get some front and rear wing aero upgrades to improve downforce and cornering speed. There are a lot of wing upgrades so purchase at least 2 or 3 early on if needed.

Moderately Important Car Upgrades

The 5 categories covered above are the most critical areas to get upgraded in my opinion at least playing the Driver career mode.

Now let’s move to some other quite important updates that do affect car performance a lot, but aren’t quite as urgent as the others above:

• Front/Rear Wings (Aero) – Downforce is king in F1, so absolutely get the Font and Rear aero upgrades done in the blue section when you get chance, especially for high downforce, twisty tracks. But under the current Hybrid formula, engine power is even more critical. Try to balance out the wing updates though, so you update both the front/rear wing together, so they arrive on the same date, so you don’t have imbalances in the car handling.
• Weight Redistribution (Chassis) – Again a crucial aspect of can handling in the green Chassis section. Does give a good boost to can handling, especially cornering, stability and balance, so aim to get these updates on the car when the critical ones are done
• DRS (Aero) – Again helps with straight line speed, which is so crucial on these last few F1 games (F1 23 and F1 22 especially). Can help you maintain position when in “DRS trains” in races, plus overtake more effectively. If you leave this one behind, again you’ll find the AI harder to overtake, plus blasting past you on straights.
• Tyre Wear (Chassis) – Can come in useful especially if you do 35% or 50% races, to get longer stints on tyres. Upgrading this can be the difference between doing Medium-Hard or Soft-Hard strategies, and being able to do Soft-Medium strats in longer races. Or the difference between needing 2 stops and 1 stop. Not mission critical in my experience, but a useful upgrade for sure.

Less Important Car Upgrades

Now let’s cover the less important, less impactful upgrades that you can get to later, once you’ve got the more crucial ones down:

• Other Durability Upgrades – The 3 remaining components – MGU-K, Turbo and Energy Store – also wear out, but less than the above 3. Try upgrading these when you can to basically even out all your components (so that all parts in a “set” reach end of life at the same time, and you just move to the next set on your engine tab). The MGU-K might sometimes need a bit more urgent attention – keep an eye on comparative wear rates of the parts and upgrade to get them roughly equal wear rates.
• Fuel Efficiency (Engine) – Another useful update, but not mission critical. Allows you to run less fuel in the car for slightly lower weight. Fuel efficiency already seems decent to begin with though, so get to this when you can. Moving through the upgrades can allow you to start with zero extra fuel, or even minus, as opposed to plus 1 lap.
• Brake Upgrades (Chassis) – Pretty much last on the your to-do list for R&D. You can take them or leave them and some players don’t even bother with them (more on this below).

Upgrades To Potentially Avoid

This is a mixed bag. on the F1 2021 and F1 22 games, some players had a real problem with the brake upgrades, especially ones that turned ABS off. They found that the 3rd/4th brake upgrade especially ruined the handling, causing lock ups, and they wish they’d never done them.

On F1 23 though, it’s more toned down and you can take or leave the brake upgrades.

The first two ones (brake disc width and pad material) are generally fine and they give you a bit more stopping power. The last two, you can take or leave and many players don’t even bother with them as they already have a fast car and don’t want to disrupt the brake balance and pressure they’ve got used to.

See our guide on brake upgrades for more info. Leave them until last, and test them out during a Chassis R&D regulations reset if unsure on them.