F1 Manager 2024 review - Striving towards perfection

It’s strange to think that we're now into our third iteration of F1 Manager. From a strong start back in 2022, and following on from a polished second year, it feels like the franchise has come a long way in a short period of time.

That’s helped by a solid first entry and then bolting more content onto it for last year’s game. Thanks to a new game mode and subtle improvements under the hood, F1 Manager 2024 might be the year the series finally becomes a Champion of the genre.

Do it your way

This year's headline feature is undoubtedly Create a Team, which was highly requested by fans and is a welcome addition. It also comes as a slight surprise after SEGA’s Football Manager franchise ditched its own team creation suite for this year.

Frontier has done great work here, offering deep customisation and flexible difficulty from the moment you’ve adorned your car with your team’s paintwork. While you’d expect to be able to create a logo and a livery, it can go deeper than that, meaning no two cars ever really look the same - I spent what felt like hours fine-tuning my sponsor logos and decals.

The malleable starting options allow your team to burst onto the grid with an overflowing bank balance, start off with the best drivers around, or simply start humble, working your way to greatness over several seasons. Whatever your preference for your own story arc, there’s an option for you.

Televised traffic

F1 is just as dramatic off the track as it is on it, and F1 Manager 2024 smartly recognises this. Driver and staff morale is as important as tyre choice and car development, and I enjoyed seeing how the human and mechanical sides are intertwined.

For example, if your drivers are constantly at the back of the pack but you’re sending them on cash-boosting sponsorship events, you’ll naturally see them feel more fatigued and demotivated. The same goes for staff, and it adds an extra layer of balance to consider when planning your drivers’ calendars.

Sadly, Sponsorships do often feel like a chore. Optimistically, perhaps that’s the point, and Frontier is teaching us a hard lesson about life. In any case, it feels frustrating whenever the screen comes up, knowing you've got to do tedious work that feels largely unimportant outside of filling your coffers.

Some may enjoy that level of depth, but I started to skip those opportunities when they arose.

Nurturing talent

Part of the magic of sports management sims is in the feeling of plucking a talented youngster from relative obscurity, and with the inclusion of F2 and F3 racers on the roster in F1 Manager 2024, that’s a reality here.

There are plenty of drivers available from the off that could be the next Max Verstappen, such as Dennis Hauger and Paul Aron, so you’re not short of affiliates from the off. I'm excited to see how this develops (pun intended) as I keep working my way through each season.

I noted in my prior review-in-progress that contracts were bugged for a time, not letting you respond to offers. Thankfully, that’s now fixed, and that means you’re able to have an affiliate driver ready and waiting in the wings should you need them.

It’s race day

It’s fair to say the majority of the work on F1 Manager 2024 has been put into the off-track experience, but on Race Weekends, the experience feels ever so slightly more polished. A big new implementation here is potential powertrain issues, which I fell victim to a handful of times. They're annoying, often occurring when you least need them to, but they're certainly realistic and in keeping with the sport as a whole.

The more I played F1 Manager, the more I noticed the AI making smarter decisions race to race. A driver spinning out is no longer a death knell for a race, and they’ll recover more realistically than in prior entries.

The AI is also miles ahead in strategies with wet weather. I noticed first-hand the timings of rain changing, the AI going for longer or shorter stints on tyres, and preparing in advance for upcoming changes in the weather. It might make the race harder, but it’s a far cry from when the AI would just sort of pray for a better outcome when the rain started to fall.

It’s not all perfect, though - I’ve noticed some incorrect penalties awarded for part changes on race weekend, so there’s still some tweaking to do.

The Verdict

There are improvements to be made in the series, such as replay modes for past races, and some minor bug fixes for this year's edition.

However, F1 Manager continues to offer more of what I'd hoped for when the franchise debuted, with it just seeming to get better and better each year. Additional drivers to nurture, subtle improvements to race day, and the long-awaited team creation option make this a much deeper simulator in major and minor ways.

4.5/5

Reviewed on PlayStation 5. Review code provided by the publisher.