F1 25 Will Have Reverse Tracks

If you watched the F1 25 reveal trailer, you may have picked up on the fact that some circuits were shown with the cars going around the wrong way on a few tracks. An error in editing, or a hint at reverse layouts coming?

It turns out to be the latter. For the first time in the Codemasters-developed series, F1 25 will let you take on a handful of reverse circuits for the first time. We’ve been hands-on with them in an early preview and other changes coming to the title.

Reverse tracks

At launch, you’ll be able to drive three of the official F1 circuits the wrong way around. As will your opponents, don’t worry.

These will be Silverstone, Red Bull Ring and Zandvoort. You may be thinking that seems a short list for a big new feature, as did I at first, but Creative Director Gavin Cooper told us during a presentation that the work required is comparable to that of a new circuit.

That includes retraining AI, placing new braking markers, adjusting DRS zones and ensuring everything works as expected. Why those three tracks, then? Well, simply, they’re the ones Codemasters felt would be the most enjoyable.

Having had a chance to try them out for myself, I’ll have to agree. Taking on Zandvoort’s banking the wrong way around for the first time boggled my mind and took some real adjusting, but it genuinely felt like a new circuit – and arguably, more fun than the intended direction.

Silverstone and Red Bull Ring were easier layouts to adjust to, in my experience, but both still felt fresh. Hopefully, more will come in future updates – Monza, anyone?

Updated circuits

Other circuits in the game have had pretty significant updates compared with F1 24 thanks to new LIDAR scans, namely Bahrain, Miami, Melbourne, Suzuka and Imola.

Codemasters were keen to point out that scans were taken from Grand Prix weekends, too, meaning the virtual recreation should be about as accurate to an official F1 race as it’ll get.

Track surfaces have been updated as a result, as has vegetation, which should more accurately reflect a track’s native trees – like Suzuka’s cherry blossoms.

Livery editor reworked

Although F1 has long had custom liveries, it has been a bit of a monotonous way of doing things. You’d pick a preset design and drop fictional sponsors into fixed locations, with limited freedom.

That’s changed a little bit. Fictional sponsors remain, but they’re now freely movable on areas of the car and have several logo options, rather than flat colours as before. It should give you the ability to theme your cars more realistically, although you will still be confined to preset base liveries.

You’ll have greater control of driver numbers now, though, with several different fonts and colours now available rather than a single default option.

On the topic of liveries, one-off real-world liveries will now remain in the game and usable across all modes, provided you unlock them, rather than as a limited-time option, as was previously the case.

What about everything else?

A bunch of over minor but welcome changes have been made to F1 25.

For example, different engine suppliers in MyTeam will now have distinct engine sounds. The flashback system has been reworked to reduce the chances of you accidentally putting yourself straight back into a position to crash, and some changes to improve authenticity come into play.

These include variable podium crowd sizes depending on the track (expect Monza to be busy), Naomi Schiff coming into the game’s cinematics alongside Natalie Pinkham and Anthony Davidson, and driver dialogue being added to qualifying.

F1 25 will release on 30 May for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.