Schumacher, Senna, and co-op multiplayer are new additions for F1 2021

Enlarge / This year's installment of the official Formula 1 game, F1 2021, arrives on PCs and consoles on July 16. (credit: Codemasters)

If you've ever wanted to race with Formula 1 legends like Michael Schumacher or Ayrton Senna, your wish could come true later this summer-sort of. The iconic drivers and their driving styles have been put into F1 2021, which arrives on consoles and PCs in July.

"We've always spoken about 'wouldn't it be cool to have as your teammate the drivers that we all remember?' And that's exactly what we've done," said Lee Mather, franchise game director at Codemasters, who briefed Ars on the new game recently.

Mather's team started programming the game's AI to race like the sport's current stars in last year's F1 2020. "We put so much time and effort and science into how you do driver ratings [for F1 2020] and how you manage those on a race-by-race basis. So we built the data [ranking different attributes for each of the current F1 drivers] and then we updated every three or four grands prix," Mather explained.

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