Codies Racing Line, July 1, 2021

We’ve hurriedly cleared some space on the desk, pushing a stack of fresh news and announcements aside, to put together another huge Racing Line update together. Some toy cars also fell off the desk and we spilled a drink, but it’s fine. This is important.

Why is this regular catch-up on all the latest Codemasters news and details so big? Well, we have a host of new F1® 2021 details, and news on amazing community-created additions to DIRT 5. Oh, and one of our team went and won an actual Junior European Rally Championship race, so we’ll probably talk about that!

Anyway, our starter for 10 this time around is a double drop of news of our next official F1® title…

F1® 2021

Hello! The countdown is truly on – F1® 2021 is very nearly here! We’ve got a lot of news to recap, so strap yourself in and get ready to go…

Braking Point

Earlier this week, we unveiled the cast of Braking Point – the new story-driven mode coming to F1® 2021. From the star-in-the-making Aiden Jackson, making waves in his debut season, to the ice-cold and determined Casper ‘Cas’ Akkerman in the twilight of his career, to the villain we all love to hate, Devon Butler, the key figures in Braking Point will all play their part in an immersive racing story, played out in the world of Formula 1®.

You can head here for all the details, and you can even follow all the cast on Twitter here, to see what they have to say for themselves.

Driver Ratings

Experience, Racecraft, Awareness, Pace, and an Overall rating: the five attributes that make up the driver ratings in F1® 2021, helping you decide who’s going to be the best teammate for you in the My Team driver market. Ratings like these will always generate some debate – and not just from our players…

We recently challenged Kimi Raikkonen, Antonio Giovinazzi, Pierre Gasly, Yuki Tsunoda, George Russell, and Nicholas Latifi to guess their teammates’ attributes in F1® 2021 – and without spoiling anything, it got a little out of hand. You have to watch it!

We’ll be revealing the full and final driver ratings for launch very soon, so make sure you keep an eye out. It’s not long now until F1® 2021 is in your hands. What are you most looking forward to trying out from July 16 – or July 13 if you’ve pre-ordered the digital Deluxe Edition? Let us know!

– Jenny

DIRT 5

This past fortnight’s fun and games with DIRT 5 have been all about the community, and rewarding our players for their creativity and commitment to the game. We were not happy with just shouting about your amazing work across the DIRT social channels (even though do quite enjoy doing plenty of that), so we’ve gone one step further…

In DIRT 5’s next major update, our Online loading screens will be blessed with a selection of incredible photo mode shots, taken by members of our community. In recent weeks we asked for your best images to submit as part of this event, and after some tough judging of over 100 stunning shots, the final 12 have been revealed – and you can check them out here. Congratulations to the winners!

Aside from that, we’ve been keeping players updated on what’s shaping up to be a summer of thrills for DIRT 5. Over on our Discord, we shared some more details on what will feature in our next update – jump into the server and head to #dirt5-update-notes to see for yourself. We’ll leave you with something that’s made the entire team here smile this week: check out this fantastic DIRT 5 fan art, from ‘Rocka_Sheep!’

– Chris

ANY OTHER BUSINESS?

• In the last Racing Line we shared news of Jon Armstrong (Codemasters DiRT Rally Team driver and game designer) making a one-off appearance in the European Rally Championship, where M-Sport Poland offered him a drive in their all-new Ford Fiesta Rally3 car. Well, he’s only gone and won in his class!
  
  In doing so history was made, as this was the first event where the Ford Fiesta Rally3 was used. This was a great display of the potential of the Rally3 platform, which is set to be the new entry-point to all-wheel-drive rallying. For the full scoop, check out Jon’s vlog here on his YouTube channel.
  
  In a few weeks’ time him and co-driver Phil Hall will be on the road again, as the Junior WRC returns with Rally Estonia. We’ll be back in the next Racing Line to talk more as they continue their championship charge.
  
• Don’t miss out on the Steam Summer Sale, running now until July 8th! There’s plenty of Codemasters games up for grabs with some incredible discounts, including DIRT 5 and F1® 2020. You can find a list of all the games we have for sale by visiting the Codemasters Franchise Page.

• Share

Tweet