F1 2021 is here and we love putting in the laps on Codemasters' latest release.
While My Team has taken some players away from Career Mode, there is still nothing quite like jumping behind the wheel of a Williams and leading them back to the front of the grid, or partnering up with Charles Leclerc to finally break Mercedes dominance.
But like all games, F1 2021 can get easier the more you play it. Continuing to tweak the difficulty through your Career Mode will help your races stay challenging. But how do you do it?
How to set AI difficulty
Before you even get starting, you'll want to set your Career Mode difficulty. Whether you are racing on Casual, Standard, or Expert style, selecting "Custom Settings" as you go through the Career Mode setup menus will give you the "Simulation Settings" tab. That's where you can set your AI level.
But once you are rolling through your season and getting more experience on track you can start to outpace the car you're in and get results you probably shouldn't. If you are scoring points in a Williams in the first handful of races, you need to up the difficulty, but how?
Changing AI difficulty
In order to change the difficulty of your save once you've started it you need to be on the team HQ screen.
You'll need to then hit the menu button to get all the settings options up again. If you have progressed into a race weekend it's too late!
While not ideal, you can always go and setup a one-time Grand Prix at the track you are coming up to in your career mode to get a judge of how fast you are against the AI there. Every driver has tracks they are strong and weak on, so shifting your AI every race is not a bad idea.
Once you hit the menu button you'll get a screen that looks like this:
From there, Simulation Settings is once again available. Select that and you'll get the AI slider again.
Now you are free to move it up (or down) to give you the right level of competition for your upcoming race.
How to make Career Mode even more difficult
Formula 1 isn't just about on-track speed though, and F1 2021's Career Mode reflects that.
With resource points to spend on upgrades and the ability to switch on mechanical failures, you can make Career Mode as tricky as the real Formula 1 world.
Using Expert style you can increase the rate at which AI teams pick up money, resource points, and acclaim, all of which will make it harder for you to keep up with them through the season!
By switching player faults to Standard & High you will get out-of-the-blue mechanical failures and technical issues. Think losing a gear mid-race, a loss of power like Daniel Ricciardo in Monaco, or a total engine blowout that could scupper your Championship charge like Hamilton's 2016 blow-up in Malaysia.
These will add a level of realism, and difficulty, to your Career Mode!