F1® 24 Q&A - Casey Ringley (Sr Game Designer - Lead Vehicle Handling)

on a 50% race, will the wear have a good effect on the race given that most people run like this? or will we have the usual drop on lap 7 and then come back to life? thanks 

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@mariohomoh wrote:

@cm_caseyringley now that we're taking a closer look at ERS again, any plans on opening the flood gates and allowing custom deploymant maps for a GP weekend?

(Mercedes F1 casually dropping it while explained derating)

(Yelistener underrated F1 gem)

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I see we watch the same YouTube 🙂 Yelistener's channel was a very useful reference point for some changes we made this year. Next you'll tell me you also spend way too much time on the f1technical forums.

So we haven't gone so far as custom ERS deploy maps per track like this yet, but the concept is definitely on my radar with the 2026 regs meaning energy management will be more important than ever. That would be a massive set of new UI tools and displays to teach the player, though, so we need to think hard about the design and how best to implement the idea.

What we have given you for 24 is a lot more control over how energy is deployed and harvested through two controls everyone already understands well: throttle input and the overtake button. The most important part of this is that torque demand from throttle input now asks for it from the power unit sequentially, V6 first and MGU-K second. This means that if you're driving at 75% throttle and requesting 675hp, it will get that all from the V6 alone since it is capable of about 740hp maximum rather than throttling both the V6 and MGU-K to 75%. Only once you take the power demand over what the V6 can achieve will it start adding power from the MGU-K. Here's what that looks like in a power vs throttle chart at a specific rpm,

What this means you aren't wasting precious battery energy at part throttle, but it also means you now have the power to manually de-rate the engine by partially lifting off throttle. You'll see in the chart above that between about 72-82% throttle input, the V6 is churning away at maximum power but the MGU-K is not deploying any energy. You can use this as a strategy at the end of straights or before certain braking zones to send all energy the MGU-H is harvesting straight into the battery rather than diverting most or all of it to the MGU-K. Can be a really effective way to save up a bit more energy while behind a car so you can then burn overtake longer and get the pass completed.

The other big change we've made is allowing manual overtake use in qualifying. HotLap mode itself will try to use the full 4.0MJ deploy allowance from ES to MGU-K per lap, but assuming you start the lap with a full 4.0MJ battery that leaves another 2.0-3.0MJ on the table depending on how much you harvest from the MGU-K and -H during the lap. This is where some strategic use of overtake on a push lap can gain you additional lap time. The examples in yelistener's videos all show automatic deployment of overtake to do this, but you can do the same exact idea with a manual press of the button.