The third instalment of the F1 Manager game series - F1 Manager 2024 - launches this week, with a Nintendo Switch version being added for this year alongside PlayStation, Xbox and PC releases.
We’ve already given the game an in-depth preview running through what’s new for 2024, so to mark the game’s release we thought we’d discuss how the series is getting on now its third title is coming out.
To do that, we paired up our gaming expert Nathan Quinn, who has played all three F1 Manager games extensively, with series newcomer Glenn Freeman, who hadn’t played the 2022 or 2023 versions before getting stuck into this year’s edition.
Here’s what they make of the F1 Manager series:
Glenn Freeman: I’ve always liked the look of the F1 Manager games, but it’s been a while since I’ve had the time to get stuck into a racing management game. Aside from a few dabbles with Motorsport Manager (both on iOS and the PC game, which was great), my experience is much more ‘Grand Prix Manager 2’ and ‘Grand Prix World’ from the 1990s!
The first thing that struck me about playing F1 Manager 2024 was how daunting it all felt when you get started. I jumped straight into a one-off race, where I managed to turn a 7-8 grid position for Mercedes into an 11-12 finish, and I wasn’t really sure why!
Nathan Quinn: It’s interesting to contrast a new player’s perspective with someone who’s played all of the F1 Manager games a lot. I can imagine it’s a bit off-putting to start with. It’s never as complicated as it feels at first.
GF: True. I took over Red Bull for a race (the game understandably is using earlier 2024 performance data) and getting a 1-2 there was a doddle. I’m sure I did a better job too, but it at least gave me some confidence that this game can be quick to master if you don’t stack the deck against yourself.
NQ: The good thing is that difficulty settings were added to the career mode late last year for F1 Manager 2023. You can change both on-track and off-track settings, and tweaking the on-track difficulty is definitely worth it for those who are less familiar with F1 strategies and tactics. It reduces how creative and aggressive the AI teams get, so you’re under less pressure.
What we learned from playing the new F1 Manager 2024 game
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But it’s the car development difficulty that’s more interesting to explore long-term since a big issue with the previous games was how easy it was to develop a championship-winning car if you prioritised developing the following year’s car.
GF: I didn’t expect you to say that car development has been too easy in the previous games. While I quickly got my head around managing the races - which are great fun and we’ll come back to them shortly - I still don’t feel like I have a handle at all on all the stuff you need to do between races when running your team. The level of depth the game has looks incredible, so you can’t fault the attention to detail. But even to a hardcore F1 fan, who’s not a total novice with F1 management games, it feels overwhelming.
NQ: The off-track side is deceptively simple but it certainly doesn’t appear that way at first glance. You just have to ignore the wall of stats that are in unnecessarily high levels of decimal point precision.
My strategy has been estimating how many upgrades I can do per ATR period and then dividing my allowances up equally per upgrade. There’s not much complexity beyond that, but I wouldn’t blame anyone for being put off by it and it probably would benefit from simplifying its presentation or even having the option to automate it. Maybe deciding on key areas of improvement and delegating the specifics to your staff?
GF: Yeah, it looks to me like that side of the game is crying out for the option to delegate! Perhaps as team boss you could either help set a general direction or key priorities, then your staff are left to get on with it. Or you could be called in to make important decisions every now and then.
So far I’m really enjoying the racing in the game, but I feel like if there’s anything that’s going to stop me continuing to play for multiple seasons, it’s the time spent between races. There’ll be plenty of people pointing out that managing an F1 team is about a lot more than pitstop strategies on race day, but I’d counter by saying the more you can let players customise their experience, the more happy players you’ll have!
NQ: Talking of customisation, the fact you can customise your starting situation if you use the new create-a-team mode means you can make it much more easy or challenging for yourself if you want to. You can give yourself high- or low-quality resources and choose how much money you have.
GF: I like that they have a few preset backstories you can choose - things like a big international company has come into F1 and has set up a team, etc. Or you can just define everything yourself, including your driver line-up and which staff you hire. When I set up my team, the default driver line-up it had was Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen! I wouldn’t have felt right starting with those two, as fun as that would be.
NQ: Create-a-team is great. They’ve clearly taken some cues from the Codemasters F1 games but F1 Manager 2024 has done it a bit better with the livery options and the extent to which you can customise your team’s logo and placement of sponsor logos on your car.
GF: At this point I’m obliged to mention that the deluxe edition features a bunch of miscoloured classic F1 liveries. All you have to do is tweak the colours and you’ve got a Marlboro-esque McLaren, an early-1990s Williams (which my ‘Bring Back V10s’ team races with), a mid-1990s Benetton, a Vodafone McLaren, and an early 2010s ‘Team Enstone’ livery. That’s a great touch that I wish the Codemasters F1 games would adopt, too.
NQ: One thing the F1 Manager games have largely got right from the very start was the racing action. The animations aren’t silky smooth but for a management game they’re hugely impressive when compared to something like Football Manager. So it means in-race management has always been the focus. The series has always shone the brightest when you have a race with multiple safety cars or a red flag or changeable weather conditions as it captures the magic of watching a truly great F1 race.
GF: You’re absolutely right. My first career mode race in Bahrain featured a mid-race red flag, and after that there was a six-car battle for the lead for 20 laps, before it started to settle down a bit once the drivers who had tried to get to the end on soft tyres started to fade. A couple even had punctures on the last lap!
It’s not as smooth as watching a replay on F1 24 but, like you say, it’s good enough. And while the mega pack racing isn’t completely realistic, it’s so fun if you end up in a battle like that, and the fundamental elements that underpin that excitement are all legitimate. You’re still telling your driver to manage his tyres, watch his engine temperatures and fuel usage.
And it can all go wrong in a flash, as it did for me when my second driver - Liam Lawson - went off and damaged his tyres. He fell away from the two other cars he was battling with after that, and I had to bring him in for his next stop early, so the rest of our race was compromised.
NQ: You mentioned engine temperatures there, and managing that is now genuinely important, because mechanical failures have been added for 2024. It’s a great, if long-overdue, inclusion.
What makes it greater is that they are more than just forced retirements. Engine management has to be taken into consideration the same way that tyre temperatures (which were added last year) are.
And having minor car issues that you can keep racing with finally gives purpose to telling your driver to stay off the kerbs - an instruction I never used at all in either of the last two games.
GF: I got a feel for that by doing one of the scenario-based challenges in the game, where you have to manage the final stint of Charles Leclerc’s race at Imola, where he’s got a healthy lead over Verstappen but a not-so-healthy engine. If you just told him to back everything off and drive cautiously Max would gobble him up, so it became a real juggling act. It felt like every decision I made really mattered.
NQ: Another side of the game that feels like it has more depth this time is sponsor management. In F1 Manager 2022 it was far too easy to turn a profit, and in 2023 making a big profit wasn’t easy but it was never a major issue as staying at the upper edge of the cost cap was always doable.
In 2024, the ability to try to get more money through promising good race results or doing team activities with your sponsors means there’s more to think about on the off-track side than just developing car parts.
GF: I think so far my team is projected to make quite a big loss in year one, so I’m hoping I can balance that out by achieving some race-by-race objectives and upsetting my drivers by making them do sponsor days! I’ll deal with those consequences down the line, as the new ‘mentality’ system in the game looks like it’s going to be a big juggling act as people get tired or upset with the team’s performances during a long season.
NQ: Your long season comment brings me to the final point I want to make, which is about an underrated addition to F1 Manager 2024: the ability to simulate races. In a 24-round calendar with six sprint races and given how important it is to have some involvement in practice sessions-
GF: Oops!
NQ: - it’s a welcome addition.
I’m much more interested to see multiple season-by-season changes rather than spending literal hours bogged down in one year, particularly if you’re stuck with an uncompetitive car.
GF: Perhaps that’s a feature that could be borrowed from the Codemasters games in future: the option to run a reduced number of races per season. If I try to play a full season it could be a long time before I get through the first year on my game!
NQ: Yeah, you need that multi-season element to play out to give the game more variety. Otherwise it could get a bit boring or samey, for new or experienced players.
GF: Let’s wrap this up then: what would your one-line summary be of F1 Manager 2024, and what’s one thing you’d love to see added to the next game in the series to make sure it keeps you coming back for more?
NQ: Disappointingly similar to last year’s game but a definite improvement, particularly off-track.
What I’d like to see in next year’s game? More varied and dramatic rule changes to help shake up the pecking order and make going through multiple seasons less repetitive.
GF: Nice. I can’t compare it to previous titles, but I’m glad I got to turn my curiosity about the F1 Manager series into a first-hand experience of it. If the off-track stuff ends up being as straightforward as you’ve told me it is, then the entertaining on-track experience is going to keep me coming back.
My suggestion for 2025 would be online multiplayer. Battling against teams run by real people would be so much fun.
