F1® Manager 2022

Review

I have been a Formula 1 nutcase since I was a tadpole! I saw the rivalry between Prost and Senna, the rise of Nigel Mansel with the William team and the incredible talented driver who became the first seven-time world champion, the one and only Michael Schumacher. I have seen the changes in terms of safety, rules of the sport, and the evolution of the cars through the years to what they are now, the Hybrid era. But, it is not just cars going flat out around tracks for our spectacle; there is so much more in the background than meets the eye. Hundreds of people per team constantly work on understanding and developing the cars throughout the seasons to find those extra tenths of a second to hopefully win a race and keep winning them. But, it is also an expensive sport, and good management is needed to be successful in Formula 1. So, if you like the sport as much as I do and would like to take the reins of your favourite Formula 1 team and make all the decisions from the development to the pit stops strategy, F1® Manager 2022 will get you hooked for many hours.

F1® Manager 2022 is a simulation and management game developed and self-published by Frontier Developments on the 31^st of August 2022 on the Steam platform. The game is available on PS4/PS5, Xbox One and Xbox One Series X|S.

It has been a while since I played and enjoyed a Formula 1 management game as much as this one. The concern I had before playing the game was how complex the interface would be. But to my surprise, this concern was removed pretty much straight away due to the excellent tutorial, which you can access at any time in case you forget something as you play.

After selecting which team, you want to manage, you’ll arrive on the Team Dashboard. There, you’ll be able to see your drivers, where the next race will take place, the current standing of the teams and the driver’s championships. On the bottom of the dashboard, you’ll have several tabs to access all sorts of things, such as emails, the calendar, circuits, cars, drivers, facilities and a few other things.  As I mentioned above, it is very easy to navigate your way through the interface. Designing and manufacturing new parts for your cars is pretty straightforward, as is scouting for new drivers or new team members. When you are done, you can press the continue tab, which is located on the top right of your screen. If you have nothing important that might occur before the next Grand Prix, such as an announcement that a part has been manufactured, for example, you’ll go straight to the next race preparation. But make sure to check both the aerodynamics and powertrains of your car before doing so.

A small track introduction will be shown before you land in your garage. You can skip the introduction if you want to. In the garage, you’ll see the weekend layout, which is the three practice sessions, the qualifying session and, of course, the race.  Now you can simulate or take control of all sessions before the race. Bear in mind that each practice session will take an hour to complete. Yes, there is an option to fast forward the time, but in my case, I prefer to simulate these three sessions and take control of the qualification and the race. It will also show you what type of weather each session will have.

When you take control of a session, you have access to plenty of information which I won’t go into detail about, but they are there. You’ll see the pit lane, and you’ll have both drivers’ communication boxes on each side and at the bottom of your screen. This is where you tell your drivers what to do. You can tell them to change their pace from light to aggressive. Similar thing with the fuel tabs, and you also have the ERS tab, which you can specify how to use as well as when to recharge it.

That’s pretty much everything, but you have to be tactical, which is the fun of it. What I also like, is the fact that you can follow your drivers along the circuits with different views, such as onboard view or a view as a spectator watching the race on the televisions.

The graphics are really good, but I had several flickering screens while watching the race, which is not great. The thing I didn’t like at all was the safety car implementation. It takes too long for all cars to catch up with it. In some instances, it took three laps for all cars to catch up, which was ridiculous. In most of the races I played, there were events such as accidents or cars running wide or span. Charles Leclerc spooned on me a few times. What a bugger, I lost a race because of this!

Overall, the game is good, and I am enjoying it.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

F1® Manager 2022 Steam Store Page