F1 2020: Mexican Grand Prix Setup Guide - Career, my team, time trial

2015 saw the return of Formula 1 to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez after a 23-year absence. Since then, it has produced a series of great races. The circuit’s situation at high altitude makes it a very different challenge to many other locations on the F1 calendar.

The layout of the track is fairly simple. An enormous pit straight is followed by another straight after turns one, two and three. After that, the rear half of the circuit is tight and twisty.

Any good setup will need to accommodate for both the long straights and the complex sectors 2 and 3.

Aerodynamics

Unlike in real life, you won’t need to run maximum downforce settings at this circuit. This is due to the fact that the track’s altitude doesn’t have an effect on air density within F1 2020.

For me, 3-6 is the way to go. This gives plenty of front-end grip without the car becoming twitchy under acceleration.

Transmission

Like at every other circuit, I recommend running 50% on-throttle differential. This setting will help to ensure that the rear of the car doesn’t kick out on you when you try to lay the power down.

For the off-throttle setting, 50% works here as well. This will give you high amounts of rotation during the slower and medium speed corners.

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Usually, a low off-throttle setting would cause issues with mid-corner stability, but this isn’t a problem in Mexico.

Suspension Geometry

Part of the reason that you can run a low off-throttle differential setting is in your camber settings.

Specifically, -2.60 and -1.10 provide you with a car that won’t do anything unpredictable at high speeds.

For your toe settings, the minimum values of 0.05 and 0.20 give you excellent performance in the longer corners without having much of a downside.

Suspension

Even though it is advisable to ride the kerbs quite extensively around here, you can still get away with a suspension setup that isn’t as soft as it could be.

In fact, 3-6 works really nicely for your front and rear suspension settings. This will give you the responsive car that you need for the S-section of the track.

For the anti-roll bars, running a fairly stiff setup is important to prevent the car from washing wide in the higher speed corners. I’ve found 6-9 to give the best results here.

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Once again, even though you’ll be riding the kerbs a fair amount, you won’t necessarily need to run a high ride height to compensate. 

2-4 should be sufficient, but if you find yourself struggling with stability over the kerbs try raising this a little.

Brakes

Brakes are a matter of personal preference. I love running 100% brake pressure with 50% brake bias. If you find that you’re uncomfortable with this setup then try lowering your brake pressure to suit your style.

Tyres

While this track is not as bad as some for overheating your tyres, it is still a menace in this regard.

To help you deal with your tyre temperatures, it’s a good idea to lower your tyre pressures. I’ve gone with 22.2psi for the fronts and 19.9psi for the rears.

It’s possible that you’ll still have temperature troubles with these pressures, in which case you should lower them further.

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With this setup you should be able to set consistent lap times, even once your tyres have started to degrade.

The most important thing is to keep your tyres in the right temperature window, so pay attention to that, and make changes to the tyre pressures if necessary.