Things aren’t going particularly well at Aston Martin. I took the helm at the team from Silverstone shortly before the start of the season and found a disaster – our car is a tractor and, unlike in real Formula 1, the team doesn’t already have an alternative in production. In the first race, we’re stuck at the back. The Williams are significantly slower, but the rest are decisively faster. So we cart around somewhere in no man’s land and drive our own race, which isn’t exactly exhilarating.
Back at headquarters, there are at least a few rays of hope: Our budget situation is decent and our facilities for personnel, business and vehicle construction are a solid foundation for the future. To make the leap to the midfield, I’m commissioning a new chassis design and a new underfloor. Our chief engineers have below-average ratings, so I take a look at alternatives and assign a scout to take a closer look at my favorite. This gives me an idea of what the candidate has in mind in terms of salary and bonuses. In this case, we meet in the middle, as the team is under pressure to progress and the engineer in question currently doesn’t have a job.
I also commission upgrades to the design center and wind tunnel, which should yield results later in the season. If you start with Aston Martin or another backmarker, you’ll need patience.
In the next Grand Prix there’s not much to be gained once again, but at least I manage to provide Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll, whose despairing real-life radio messages perfectly underscore the team’s dismal situation, with car set-ups that give them confidence this time. To do this, the game has made use of a mini-game that already exists in Motorsport Manager – you send the drivers out in free practice, get feedback, and then try to adjust the car via five sliders until it suits the pilots. During free practice, they also have to get used to the track and adjust to any new car parts we bring. The better these three things go, the more bonus points the drivers receive to their attributes for qualifying and the race – a maximum of 15 bonus points are possible for each Grand Prix. In our case, unfortunately, this has little influence on the result, but good practice sessions and a few fights on the track at least earn the drivers nice experience points.
Lance Stroll, who as a youngster still has high growth potential, receives a development point as a result. This allows us to increase one of his attributes. A report from our analysts tells us that we’re lagging behind the other teams in braking in particular, so I invest the point in this skill.
It’s supposed to rain at the race in Australia. The drops from the sky are the great equalizer in motorsport and could be our chance to finish in the points. I decide to start on the medium tires because the rain is supposed to come in around the end of their projected lifetime. Our weather station is only on level 1, so the forecasts are not super accurate, but what have we got to lose?
After the start, our drivers are in the lower midfield and we’re hoping the mediums hold until the rain – which they do! Just as I’m getting anxious because the gambit didn’t pay off, the drops start falling. They’re falling fast and they’re falling at the perfect time because we’re just before pit lane entrance.
So we go in, put intermediate tires on and push. Since most of the cars in front of us had to do a slower lap in the rain before stopping, we made up places. We’re not in the points yet, but since it’s supposed to dry up again during the race, we have a chance to repeat this feat by switching back to slicks at the right time. Unfortunately, I’m not an experienced team leader yet and give the command about a lap too early – we lose about 20 seconds on the out lap after the stop compared to the cars on inters. The advantage we had previously gained is gone. Everyone else goes in a lap later and immediately sets normal lap times. At least that’s a good experience for later rain races. Sorry for going full Ferrari, team!
Back to HQ. Our new designs are finally ready and I’m commissioning their manufacture. However, the data comparison with the rest of the field shows that we’re still massively behind – and you can feel that clearly in the races, some of which are simply quite dull at the back because there’s no important decision to be made. Contract negotiations with our drivers are not going well either. Vettel and Stroll seriously want a hefty bonus for finishing 19th in every race. You guys already get salaries, you know? They don’t pay me enough to deal with this.
Time for me to head for greener pastures in a second career with Alfa Romeo. That’s not without a certain irony, considering the team colors of the two squads. Compared to Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo has built a rocket ship, but the team has less budget available and its facilities are not quite as solid. But with the better car, we can finally give some performance guarantees to our sponsors for some bonus payouts. We’re betting on reaching the final stage of qualifying in the opening race, which Valtteri Bottas actually manages to do. Bagging those optional bonuses in as many races as possible will help us retain key personnel, not fall behind in upgrades, and make future investments.
In the race, the difference between backmarkers and a team in the front half is like that between night and day: I assign aggressive strategies to Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, which quickly earn us position gains. The Finn overtakes Perez as well as Leclerc and is chasing the top duo of Sainz and Verstappen, while Zhou works his way into the top 10. I can’t help but frantically switch back and forth between the cockpit perspectives of the two while keeping an eye on lap times, tire temperatures and battery charge. Comparing all the data, which I pause the race for (a feature the actual strategists would probably kill for), reveals that our tire wear is quite high compared to the competition. But as long as we stay within the DRS window of the guys in front, we should be able to spare our rubber to some extent while still keeping up. So I’m ordering a little bit of tire conservation. Bottas has to let Leclerc go, but in his DRS window he creates a gap to Perez. Zhou – now in a strong seventh place after his charge up the ranks – is stuck behind Alonso in a huge DRS train. Just like real life, eh?
Attentively babysitting and managing the tires, engine settings and battery drain on both cars, lap after lap goes by in a flash. We’re in the pit window for our strategy, and since Bottas’ tires are… well, they’re gone, Bono, I bring him in a bit early and let him go full throttle again. Zhou was a little gentler on his rubber despite the numerous overtaking maneuvers and is able to reach the optimally calculated time for his stop. I let them push and accelerate the race pace briefly until the other teams pit. Our strategy worked! Bottas has caught up with the top trio thanks to the undercut and Zhou has moved up to sixth place. The Finn fights with Sainz for a while, but this puts some strain on his tires and fuel reserves. A spin unfortunately ends our podium dreams prematurely and without DRS we fall further and further behind the Ferrari. That’s just the fate of the team boss: In the end, like the spectators, we’re doomed to watch helplessly. All we can do is manage the resources the drivers have at their disposal and give them some orders like letting their teammate through, backing the drivers behind him up, avoiding kerbs, or driving in clean air. The rest is up to the one at the steering wheel.
Perez is still behind us and I’m managing tire wear and fuel consumption with great care so that we can maintain fourth place. Zhou, meanwhile, is in an exchange of blows with Lewis Hamilton. After the second stop we keep our positions, but Perez caught up with Bottas because we had to conserve resources in the meantime.
But that pays off on the last lap: We have enough fuel to go full push, the tires aren’t completely done, and we have an almost full battery to fend off Perez’ attacks. Zhou gets the same resources but loses the duel against Hamilton, which is no shame whatsoever. 4th and 7th place in the opening Grand Prix! I ran almost the entire race in real time, pausing at times to study data and make decisions, and yet the time flew by. Who would have thought it: it’s much more intense and exciting when you’re driving in the middle of the action and your decisions actually have an impact on the situation on the asphalt. Climbing up the ranks and earning those first points with Aston or Williams will be a satisfying experience, but I’d recommend anyone looking for a bit more action to choose a team from a bit further up the grid.
So, what’s the verdict, then? There certainly are management games that are more in-depth than F1 Manager 2022, but the presentation and the use of the official FIA licenses are second to none. It’s really nice to hear actual radio exchanges between the race engineers and the drivers, though there could be a bit more variety here.
I’d like to see a few changes and customization options here and there in the user interface, but the console version probably holds the PC version back a bit there. Above all, customization of the data overviews would be desirable – in the lap time overview, for example, it would be good if you could show the tires used to achieve these times or the comparison times of other drivers on the same screen, instead of having to tab back and forth between different overviews. The game offers a lot of data – F1 nerds get everything they need to make informed decisions. On the other hand, casual gamers won’t be overwhelmed by it at the same time. Those who want to simulate (and basically skip) practice and qualifying and simply do some motor racing with their favorite drivers can do so easily.
The basic package that F1 Manager 2022 offers is fine. It promises to let you manage the fortunes of a team in the role of F1 team manager, and it fulfills that promise.
In the long run, however, I wonder if the game might lack some meat on the bones: Random dilemmas don’t occur too often and consequences are limited, drivers and staff are authentic real people but don’t have any features beyond their attributes, and not much happens in the development of vehicle parts other than boosting a few metrics. These are all subsystems that could be expanded upon without compromising the really good accessibility of the title. Why are there no pay drivers that bring in additional cash, for example?
This would also help the aforementioned bleakness I felt at Aston Martin – if you’re a backmarker team with nothing much to do on the track (because no matter how attentive I am to those tires, we won’t win anything with that car for quite a while), it would be nice if there was at least a bit more to do outside the circuit.
The world of F1 is wild and dramatic both on and off the tarmac – F1 Manager 2022 currently does a great job of replicating the heat of the racing action, while giving every type of fan and gamer a way to enjoy it in their own way. As with a Formula 1 car, there is quite a bit of potential for improvement.
Written by Marco Wutz on behalf of GLHF.
