I’m gonna be real with you — I really don’t like Max Verstappen. I’m fully aware of his once-in-a-generation talent, and will fully accept that he is one of the greatest to ever do it. But when put under any competitive pressure, he crumbles into the equivalent of that ill-tempered teenager on the karting track (Hungary 2024 is a good example, and it will may happen again at Spa).
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So while I am watching it all unravel this season with McLaren closing the gap and ending Red Bull’s dominance, I want to take this one step further. I want to take on Christian Horner and his cronies myself, and F1 Manager 2024 gave me the opportunity to do so in one of the best management sims I’ve played in a long time.
Did it take me bankrupting the Tom’s Guide Racing team to do it? Yes. But it was absolutely worth it, and the slow burn of watching your short term decisions flourish into long term gains makes this an addictive title to pick up.
Backroom management
I reviewed F1 Manager 2022 and 2023 for Laptop Mag, and as you can see by the slowly increasing score, Frontier Games have been slowly improving the formula. F1 Manager 2024 continues this trend of acting like a well-oiled pit crew — constantly tweaking and optimizing the setup with vastly improved dynamic AI, a new mentality system, the chance to train up young prospects as driver affiliates, and (biggest of all) the chance to create your own team.
Look, it’s always great to take your place as Team Principal of Ferrari and actually do good by the team. Seriously, why do they have to do Charles Leclerc dirty like that with some God awful pit stop strategies? But that personal touch of being able to make your own team, get creative on the branding, build your backstory and take your own creation to the top is hell of a good feeling.
The core of the game remains the same, in that it’s a lot of text-heavy menus (presented in a slicker UI in this year’s version) where you have a few different plates to keep spinning — finding that balance between always developing to stay competitive, keeping your team and drivers happy and motivated to bring their A-game, keeping your facilities tip-top, and making sure the board and sponsors are happy to keep giving you a ton of cash.
Track wars
While there is definitely a rush from long-term strategizing and watching those decisions play out with big developmental gains in the long run (especially when you find that rare jewel of an F2 driver and destroy the F1 competition with them), the real magic can be found when you’re trackside.
This is where your tactical brain is really engaged. Starting with the practice sessions, your key mission here is to get the perfect car setup balance for the track and give your drivers plenty of time to get acquainted — whether it’s with the twisty high downforce requirements of the Hungaroring that cut back on the top speed, or those with more straights that rely on pure power like Bahrain.
To gamify this, Frontier has created a fun little minigame with sliders that update every time you get on-track feedback from your drivers. It’s a satisfying feeling when you get it just right, but I can completely empathize with anyone who thinks this will get boring after the first few times.
Luckily, you can simulate any session of the weekend, though as a pro tip, I recommend you don’t skip that first practice session at least (and use this F1 Manager Setup Calculator if you want to cut some corners and get to the good stuff).
And by the good stuff, I mean the qualifying and race. It’s a real showcase for the game’s dynamic AI to see how it reacts to changing weather conditions and track grip to extract the best possible lap times.
You get a great challenge from it, which encourages you to think tactically on many fronts — from deciding how intensely your racers push the car lap-to-lap to picking the optimal lap for a pit stop that ensures you have a good chance of undercutting your competitors (stopping earlier and going faster to overtake them while they pit later).
It makes each successful venture feel powerful, and when all the instruments of your orchestra come together (your investment in car development, driver training, pit crew training and facility improvements) the symphony of domination you get in a Grand Prix feels so damn good.
Not gonna convert management sim newcomers, but great nonetheless
Say you’re an F1 fan, but have never touched a management sim game in the past. Is this the perfect storm of a game that will scratch that itch and properly introduce you to this genre? Well, no.
The learning curve is kind of steep, regardless of how detailed and easy-to-follow the tutorial is, and while there isn’t such a focus on micromanagement as there is with the likes of Football Manager, it’s still the kind of game that can create stressful moments of trying to find the right compromise.
But if you’re someone who has dabbled in this genre before, and you’re looking for a new challenge, the improvements Frontier has made turns F1 Manager 2024 into one of the best sports management sims you can play right now.
