F1® 25 developers explain the biggest changes in the 2026 Season Pack

F1® 25 enters a new era with the arrival of the 2026 Season Pack, introducing updated Formula 1® regulations, the debut of the Madring circuit, deeper race strategy systems, and new gameplay features like Overtake mode that bring players even closer to the intensity and tactical battles of modern Formula 1® racing.

To learn more about how the team approached this ambitious new chapter for Formula 1®, we sat down with Senior Game Designers Steven Embling and Yashar Kiani from Codemasters to talk all about it. The challenges. The triumphs. And why this next chapter is the most exciting one yet for players and fans around the world.

Let’s get into it!

Hey folks! Thank you for joining us. At this point in time, the Season Pack has launched and is in players' hands. How are you feeling?

Steven Embling:
It’s always good to get to the end of a project. And this one has been a bit different for us. Not just because of the teams and tracks, but because we were also updating a lot due to the new regulations within the sport itself. That kept things very interesting and challenging, so to get to the point where we can launch everything we wanted… It’s a nice feeling.

Yashar Kiani:
Complicated? [Laughs]. During the development, we were watching one of the biggest regulation changes that I have been aware of for a long time. I think every week I was going to Steve and asking, ‘What is this new thing?’ So as the sport was changing, we were changing with it, which was a rollercoaster for us. But it’s good to see people were excited after the trailer came out, because that kind of validates us. Now it’s like, okay, we have something. Overall, I am excited.

There are a ton of new features and updates coming with the F1® 25: 2026 Season Pack. What are you personally most excited for players to get their hands on?

Steven:
For me, I think it's gonna be the feel of the driving and the way that the racing is different. When you watch Formula 1, the real-life sport, you can't help but notice how many more overtakes there are. And how close the racing is, how much more tactical as well. And that really comes through in the way that we've got that simulated in the game. You can have some really fantastic races with the AI, and obviously, when you go online, other players too. It's a little bit more of a strategic element with the management of the batteries.

That's just something that comes through from the sport, and I think we recreate it really, really well, so I'm looking forward to seeing how our community interacts with that and the kind of experiences that they can have.

Yashar:
I feel that for a lot of the newer players, potentially a larger grid might also be quite exciting. More overtake opportunities, just being able to see more cars and to interact with them, I think that can be quite interesting for players starting from the back of the grid, more competition.

Another feature, or another point that we talked quite a bit about, which might not look like a lot, is the amount of assist and controls that players might have over the car.

We initially wanted a lot of this to be automated as the regulations were quite complex, and we were trying to simplify it, but in the end, we came to a good compromise that people who want to experience the new cars will have it as automated as possible, with assists on. But you can get very nerdy and have all the assists off and control every bit of the car, and really min-max. So that would be quite cool for the more hardcore players as well.

The 2026 Formula 1® regulations are a huge change for the sport. What challenges did that create for the team?

Steven:
We've got cars that are drastically different. They're much smaller, they're lighter, and the amount of downforce they produce is about 15% lower.

Lap times are around one second slower than last year, so still pretty competitive in terms of overall pace. But the way that that lap time is made, it's totally different. 

A good chunk of that comes from the electrical side. And we've got all these changes to the structure of the racing, effectively. So, Overtake mode, that's a key innovation.

The new Active Aero with the straight line mode, where the front and rear wings open. Of course, we had to model the authentic zones, similar to how we did with DRS, but there are a few more of them this time around.

Getting them all correct for every circuit took a lot of research, but we managed to get those all set up.

Madring is one of the most exciting additions as well, but it must have been complicated to put together because the track isn’t yet live in real life. How do you build a circuit that doesn’t fully exist yet?

Yashar:
I want to give a lot of credit to the art team here.

They worked with CAD data, and also looked at photos of the excavated track to understand what the buildings and surrounding areas might look like. Similar to how we were working from the regulations, they had to make a lot of educated decisions about how the track would come together.

There was a lot of back and forth, and honestly, some concern that the real track might not be finished in time. That would have put us in a strange position where we had a track in-game that we might not be able to ship with. But luckily, it looks like Madring is on track in real life as well.

The art team really pulled it together. They deserve all the credit there, they did incredible work.

How does Overtake mode impact gameplay in F1® 25?

Steven:
It's a slightly different take on what we've had with the energy management prior to this season.

Now with Overtake mode, if you're within one second of the car in front, which is incidentally the same requirement that was previously used for DRS, what will happen is the harvesting limit will be increased, which means you can gain a little bit more energy to fill up the battery.

But then the deployment curve is actually different. The faster you go, the less electrical deployment is available. But when you have Overtake mode, that tapers off at a faster speed.

So effectively, you can deploy more when you're at higher speeds.

That gives a certain element of tactical freedom. Ultimately, it will enhance straight-line speed, so that it's just that little bit more to help get the overtake done.

Yashar:
The most important change for Boost Mode compared to DRS as the main way of overtaking is that in the previous regulations, you could always guess when someone's gonna be overtaken.

In the new regulations, it's up to the driver when they're gonna deploy, how they're gonna deploy it.

I think we'll see more strategic places where certain drivers will use the boost compared to others.

Any final thoughts before players jump into F1® 25: 2026 Season Pack?

Yashar:
I just want to give a massive shout-out to the entire team.

There were a lot of changes, and I think we landed them really well. It was definitely a wild ride, but everyone put in a huge amount of effort to get it over the line.

I really hope players see that effort and enjoy what we’ve built around the new 2026 regulations.

Steven:
A big well done to the whole team. Everyone has come together and created something we can be really proud of, and I'm really looking forward to everyone in the community, our player base, getting hold of it, and hopefully enjoying it, having lots of fantastic races.

F1® 25: 2026 Season Pack is available now worldwide. Jump into the new era of Formula 1® racing and experience the updated regulations, strategic overtaking systems, and the debut of Madring for yourself.

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