The latest update for F1 2021 has arrived this week, and brings with it a much-anticipated track and an unusual livery addition.
Dubbed v1.12, the update adds an important piece of the 2021 Formula One calendar, bringing the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari — better known as Imola — into the game for the first time since F1 2013.
Imola was previously an ever-present on the F1 schedule, hosting a grand prix every year from 1980 to 2006 — bearing the name of the “San Marino Grand Prix” for most of that time, despite being 60 miles outside the tiny country’s borders. It hosted one of the sport’s darkest weekends too, in 1994, which saw the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna.
After a long period off the calendar, Imola returned in 2020 to fill in some gaps in the season’s scheduling thanks to global travel restrictions. The new version of the circuit played host to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and a successful and enthralling race saw the track appear on the calendar again this season — and it looks set to return in 2022 as well.
The second main content addition to the game comes by way of a brand new livery for the Red Bull Racing RB16B, as driven by Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
Red Bull’s engine supplier, Honda, is technically leaving the sport at the end of this season, although its engines will continue in the sport under a new Red Bull Powertrains branding. The team was looking for a way to commemorate the partnership, which has seen 13 race wins (plus one for junior team AlphaTauri) since the 2018 season, and came up with a one-off livery.
Paying homage to Honda racing cars of the past, particularly Richie Ginther’s Honda RA272 which scored the first ever F1 win for the brand, the livery features a white base color with red highlights, and the message “arigato” (thank you) in Japanese hiragana.
That was supposed to appear on the car for the 2021 Japanese Grand Prix, at Honda’s home Suzuka Circuit, but the race was cancelled for this season. Instead Red Bull decked the cars out for the Turkish Grand Prix last weekend.
Interestingly, this livery is “time-limited” in F1 2021. It’s available now, in this update, but a subsequent update will remove it, so be sure to get all of your photomode shots of the car done in short order.
That’s not quite everything in the update however. Following Red Bull’s livery change, all nine other teams have seen their liveries updated to reflect real-world changes — and these won’t be time-limited.
There’s also changes in multiplayer modes, with a new “unsafe pit release” lobby option which will allow cars to exit their pit box regardless of traffic heading down the pit lane — with ghosting taking care of any collisions. Imola will feature in a specific playlist, and joins fellow new circuit Portimao in playlist rotations.
As well as several fixes for existing bugs, the update also adds support for the new Fanatec CSL DD wheel base. PC players will also find support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and Combined Adaptive Compute Ambient Occlusion (CACAO) features.
