REVIEW: ‘F1 Manager 2024’ Is Another Step Forward For The Franchise (PC)

Yearly releases can be difficult because games can start to feel stale. Simply updating rosters and slightly tweaking mechanics don’t always have the intended impact on players and can even go unnoticed sometimes. With F1 Manager 2024, the team at Frontier Developments brought fresh new upgrades that make a real difference in an effort to continue to be among the best management simulators on the market.

The core gameplay loop of F1 Manager 2024 remains largely unchanged. Players take control of their favorite F1 team as Team Principal and are tasked with leading them to glory. There are staff members to hire, car parts to upgrade, and races to win. The aim is for the experience to feel as authentic as possible, which is why Frontier brought in some new changes to help the game capture the hectic reality of Formula 1.

Among the changes is a new Mentality system. Drivers and key staff members are affected by everything that happens on and off the track. They all have different factors that matter more to them, so it is really important to dive into this to see what makes your team tick. Ignoring the Mentality Hub will be detrimental to even the best of teams.

In practice, this new mechanic adds a layer of immersion to the game. The idea is to make players feel like real Team Principals, and it delivers fairly well. If you fail to keep a driver or key staff member happy, the chances of losing them to another team are very real. Even when winning races, there were times that it was a struggle to hold onto staff members who wanted something they were not redeiving. Managing personalities is just as important as managing the car, and F1 Manager 2024 delivers quite well.

The new dynamic team AI and driver affiliate features factor into this. Teams can sign young talent who will race in F2 and F3, and you can manage them to see if they are ready to make it into F1. It would be nice to see this management expanded to maybe even include managing the lower-tier races, but for now, the current expansion still adds quite a lot.

Where dynamic team AI comes in is when other teams see what you have cooking in the background. If you have a young, talented driver in the wings but aren’t ready to give him what he wants, another team can come swooping in to steal him. The same goes for staff members. Other teams are constantly trying to poach the best of the best. That is where managing mentalities is really important because otherwise, you will lose them to other teams.

One major thing that would make a great addition is the ability to loan out drivers to other teams. Formula 1 has seen this in real life with Red Bull drivers racing for their feeder team or Mercedes and Ferrari drivers like George Russell and Charles Leclerc racing for customer teams. This would give players a way to keep pushing their young talent without actually losing them and would add another layer of realism to the series.

Another thing that F1 Manager 2024 added that does contribute to the realism is mechanical failures. The bane of racers’ existence. Everything can be running smoothly, you can have two drivers running at the top of the time sheets ready to bring home a maximum points finish, and then it can all come crashing down. These mechanical failures occur naturally and unexpectedly as the race weekend progresses. They can be as small as a limited ERS battery for a few laps or as massive as a complete engine failure.

Mechanical failures happen all the time in Formula 1, and they add a unique level of chaos to races. You can do everything right but still get a wrench thrown into your plans. Conversely, though, these failures also affect rival teams and can turn a mediocre race into a victory if you react well enough to another team’s struggles. The beauty of mechanical failures is that you can’t plan for them. Instead, you have to be able to react on the fly and navigate these unexpected challenges to still bring home the most points possible.

The last major racing update is the ability to simulate races. Previously, players could simulate practice and qualifying and skip right to the race. Now, players can skip the race as well and let the computer handle it all. It would be nice to have semi-automated races while still being able to watch them, a bit of a compromise that allows players to simulate the mundane parts of the race but hop in when more critical thinking is required.

All of these tweaks come together in the biggest update of them all; Create A Team mode. Formula 1 has been debating the addition of an 11th team in recent years, but F1 Manager 2024 lets you skip the debate and put your own team on the grid. Players can select from several team backstories ,which affect what drivers and staff a team can hire and the budget for the season. There is also a custom option allowing for virtually unlimited options.

Team logos, car livery, and even race suit and helmet designs are all customizable. There are preset options to make the process more streamlined, but I was amazed at the sheer creative ability available to players. I spent more time than I’d like to admit toying around with different team designs before finally landing on what I wanted my team to look like. The creative process is incredibly engaging and is so detailed it even allows players the option to choose where to place team sponsor logos on the car.

Once your created team is on the grid, that’s when things get really interesting. Poaching top talent for your team can leave other front-runners hamstrung at the start, making for a much more exciting season. It is also just great to see 22 cars racing for the win instead of only 20. More cars mean more chances for intense overtakes or chaotic events unraveling throughout. It also lets players get into it a bit more, pushing forward for their own success and not just the virtual success of a real-life team. Or, if you’re like me, bringing a certain motorsport powerhouse into the sport that is currently keeping them out and showing the other teams what they are missing out on.

F1 Manager 2024 pushes the franchise forward and is more realistic and exciting for players in different and challenging ways. The gameplay remains as fun as ever as it tries to continually tweak the winning formula as the peak of racing management games.

F1 Manager 2024 is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.