After debuting last year, “F1 Manager” is back for 2023 with an improvement on the, er, formula.
As expected, F1 Manager 23, builds upon the success of 2022’s edition, with refinements to graphics and gameplay. But while this is the latest installment of an annual sports game, this is a lot more than a reskin of the previous edition.
Makers Frontier Developments list as many as 14 new features ranging from expected things like the inclusion of sprint races, improvements to tire models and pressure from the real-world cost cap, to a life-like visor cam.
The influence of car upgrades has become more prominent, too, while staff members — including the new addition of sporting director — and drivers all have their own development focuses allowing players to steer a team’s progress both on- and off-track.
Players can also train pit crews now in a development inspired in part by a visit for the development team to Red Bull Racing, where they spent time with the real pit crew in training. Players can select a preset monthly training program, or controlling the day-to-day regime, helping them make fewer mistakes, achieve faster stops and win the DHL Fastest Pitstop award.
But perhaps the biggest addition to the new game is Race Moment scenario mode. As well as the ability to repeat full races from the 2023 season, F1 Manager 23 you can rewrite history with selected moments from each race. The mode continue to be expanded upon post-release, adding more real-world scenarios to upcoming races — exact timelines of scenario releases after each race are yet to be determined, but game director Andrew Fletcher told us a press event hosted by Frontier at Williams F1 team’s Esport’s HQ in June that the races would “still fresh in the player’s mind” when the recreated scenarios would hit the game.
We tried Monaco ahead of the release. The scenario, titled “Fernando’s Gamble” puts you in control of the Aston Martin team in a bid to get a win for Fernando Alonso. As you might recall, as rain threatened, much of the field opted for intermediate tires while Alonso risked a switch to mediums in the hope that the rain would stay away. As real-world history tells us, his gamble didn’t pay off and the possible chance of victory went away.
In F1 Manager 23 you can give Alonso a second chance. And it’s not as simple as switching to inters instead of mediums. Timing, power management and the threat of a rapid Max Verstappen are all things you have to take into account.
It took us a few times to get it right when we played a development version of the game in June. And then when we got our hands on the release version of the game last week, it took a couple more attempts — there’s a reason I write about racing rather than do racing. Nevertheless, it’s a fun challenge, and crucially, it adds a fun “pick up and play” element to the game that was sorely lacking from last year’s game. F1 Manager 22, while great, required something of a big-time commitment to play. You played full races across full seasons. Now you can do a chunk of a race that you might already be familiar with for fun,
If you do have a little more time, there is of course the big multi-season campaign, but also Starting Grid mode, where you can jump into full races from the 2023 season, with accurately replicated conditions and grids. If you’ve watched a race this year screaming at the TV thinking you could do a better job on the pit wall than those really there, this mode allows you to test the theory.
But if you want to indulge in full fantasy, running a team fully as you wish, you still can. It has to be one of the existing 10 teams though — there’s no “My Team” option to create your own outfit like there is on EA Sports’ F1 series, but it’s for good reason.
“For now we’re just focusing on building up an authentic experience of managing a real Formula 1 team that exists, one of the 10, doubling down on that and making sure we represent the sport as it is, as authentically as possible,” Fletcher said.
Post-release, though (we’re told around September), the ability to move teams in the campaign will be made available too, so you can do your best Fred Vasseur impressions and move from Alfa Romeo to Ferrari, or from whichever, to whichever team you wish.
I described last year’s debut effort from Frontier as “a revelation. Educational, informative, insightful” and this year’s game is more of the same. It really steps things up for the franchise, elevating what was already there but with even more depth, and adds even more that gives a real appreciation of what goes on in a grand prix in an accessible and familiar setting.
F1 Manager 23 is available from July 31 at 11am ET on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, and PC, priced at $54.99 for the base game or $64.99 for the Deluxe Edition.
Pre-orders of the game come with three exclusive Race Moments, including one on the upcoming Las Vegas strip circuit. The Deluxe Edition is playable now and comes with an exclusive Scenarios Pack that adds “12 unique scenario challenges including starting grids and race moments.”