F1 Manager 24 Review – The New Best Motorsport Management Sim

F1 Manager 24 Review on PC

For a long time, the best game motorsport management fans could get their hands on was, well, Motorsport Manager. Now, that isn’t the case anymore, as F1 Manager 24 has managed to overtake it both in the number of features and how well all of them are implemented.

First, let’s talk about Create-a-Team. This is one of the few things that MM had, and last year’s edition, F1 Manager 23, didn’t. That might be because people at Frontier were at that point most concerned with delivering the most accurate, raw, undiluted F1 managerial experience out there, and they did.

However, a bunch of fans, including me, enjoy personalizing literally every part of the team that they’re running, and now, we finally can. The biggest time-sink you’ll encounter in Create-a-Team is editing your car’s livery. If you, like me, have 100+ hours of experience doing that in NFS and Forza, then it shouldn’t be a problem.

Once you’re done with the liveries, you can then proceed to spend an unreasonable amount of time on other customization options, including your team’s logo, racing suits, sponsors, staff, and many other minor details. Good thing you can simulate the races so you feel less bad about spending hours each time you’re starting a new career.

Another new feature that’ll require a lot of input from you is staff mentality. Each and every one of your staff, most notably drivers, will have certain expectations and needs that you’ll have to fulfill. Otherwise, they’ll grow frustrated, decline in performance, and eventually, even leave your team!

Now, you’re probably wondering how hard it is to keep a few employees happy. Well, just think of all of the custom-tailored approaches you have for each of your family members, teachers, coworkers, superiors, etc.; you’ll have to devise those for each of your staff members, too, and it’ll take a lot of experimentation before you figure out the perfect formula.

To make matters even more complicated, you’ll now have to appease not only your two main drivers but also affiliates. These young prospects will be training and competing in F2 and F3, waiting for a chance to start their F1 career.

Once you’ve successfully made your staff not hate you, you’ll finally be ready to win some races. Frontier has worked hard to make them as realistic as possible, improving tracks and racing systems and even introducing new ones, including part malfunctions. These will occur as your car’s parts wear throughout the season and will lead your drivers to a few early retirements. Unfortunately, it isn’t perfect yet, as finishing a race with only three working wheels, like Schumacher did back in the 1996 San Marino GP, is still impossible.

Naturally, you can lower the chances of your drivers retiring by consistently developing new and replacing worn-out parts and micromanaging their race strategy, including pace, fuel consumption, ERS usage, overtaking aggression, and much more.

Besides career mode, you’ll also get a chance to reenact all of the current F1 season’s races via the Race Replay mode. Plus, you can try out Exclusive Scenarios, where you’ll have to complete custom challenges such as winning a race despite starting last on the grid. Neither of these two will be the reason someone will buy F1M24, however, they can serve as a fun challenge and a way to improve your race management skills.

Now that we’ve covered all the new features let’s talk about some of the old ones that have seen significant touch-ups. Finances and facilities will now require more management from you, as dealing with sponsors, staff, and various dilemmas throughout the season will have even more impact on your team’s performance.

Also, part development and race setups will become harder to nail, as bad or dissatisfied staff members will give you suboptimal predictions, for which you’ll need to compensate with your own knowledge of different tracks.

Lastly, the graphics and details on almost all tracks have seen improvements. However, the GPU draw has also increased, and it was already big, even on 23. My 4090 went to almost 90°C, trying to run F1 Manager 24 on ultra with FPS capped at 60. So, unless you really must see every strand of Sainz’s luscious hair while in the main menu, I suggest you turn those graphics settings down a notch and spare your GPU from unnecessary overheating.

With all of the above taken into account, it’s safe to say that F1 Manager 24 is by far the best motorsport management sim created to date. The realism, the abundance of features, and the infinite replayability are everything that any fan of this genre could ever ask for, and as expected, Frontier delivered them in spades.