F1 Manager 22 review: The perfect game for Formula 1 obsessives

EA Sports published its October 2000 issue. F1 ManagerThe simulator allowed players to manage real Formula One teams. Twenty-two years later, there is finally a followup. And it’s fantastic.

Netflix has a great series called “Docuseries on Netflix”. To Survive, Drive F1 has seen a huge rise in popularity, especially in America. It’s one of the fastest growing sports in the country, and there’s another new game hoping to capitalize on the wave of interest. F1 Manager 22Frontier Developments has released a new simulator called. This simulates Formula 1 in a complex, detailed way. The Simulator is based on the Planet Coaster series and Planet Zoo series.

F1 Manager 22Players can run one of 10 F1 teams. As team principal, you control the team’s race strategy and preparation, improve personnel (through development or new hires), upgrade the team’s car and facilities, make deals with sponsors, and much more. Since this is a management sim, you won’t be doing any of the driving yourself — but you still have a lot of control over the driver’s in-race performance by setting their strategy, giving them the right car setup, and even micromanaging their usage of tires, fuel, and energy.

Image: Frontier Developments

Between the original and the current F1 Manager Motorsport sims enthusiasts made due with this new release Motorsport Manager. It was initially a mobile game. Motorsport Manager The rights to F1’s real drivers, teams and tracks were not available. Instead, they existed in an imaginary F1 World. It eventually got a PC edition. There is an active modding community which regularly updates the game with drivers and teams from F1 World. Even with all the best efforts there was always a gap between the actual game and what immersion enthusiasts wanted.

That’s one of the many areas in which F1 Manager 22 thrives. The game has both real engineers and staff, and this is in addition to getting the right to their names and likenesses. This is an added bonus, as you can build an attachment and improve your stats with time. F1 is not just about the drivers. It’s a team sport. And the game’s use of audio pushes that connection even further.

A racing game is incomplete without the pleasing hum of a racecar. F1 Manager 22 Another layer of real-life realism is the ability to have radio communications between team members and engineers. Whenever you give your driver an instruction (such as “lift off the pedal some more” or “push for a position here”), you will hear your (real) team’s (real) engineer’s voice giving that instruction, and the (real) driver’s (real) voice responding. It’s one of the many little flourishes that combine to absolutely envelop you in what’s basically a role-playing fantasy. If the conversation gets too much, you have options to adjust the audio settings.

Image: Frontier Developments

Image: Frontier Developments

The game doesn’t just sound like the real deal, though — it looks better than any sports management sims have to date. Many games of the sport management sim category tend to look like spreadsheets, due to their heavy focus on statistics and data. However, F1 Manager 22’s racing sequences are nearly indistinguishable from EA Sports’ F1 22 racing game. The cars and tracks pop to life with stunning visual clarity, making the races pleasant to watch as you’re trying to chart your path to victory.

Visual immersion can only be achieved by having the actual tracks around. All the quirks and sights from some of the world’s most famous race tracks are in the game, from the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco to the rolling hills of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

Management simulators that are heavy on data can seem overwhelming to novice players. One of the best parts about this program is its ability to provide valuable information. F1 Manager 22It is amazing how adaptable this experience is. F1 fans will love the game’s intricacies, although the majority of the gameplay can be automated to make it easier for beginners. You just need to decide a tire strategy. This is possible. Do you want to micromanage all sectors of each lap? This is possible, too.

Image: Frontier Developments

Image: Frontier Developments

Perhaps F1 Manager 22’s crowning achievement is in how approachable it is to so many camps, from management veterans to F1 devotees to the swaths of new fans the sport has garnered in recent years. New players can find the management sim genre overwhelming. F1 Manager 22 This is addressed right away. This screen will give you an overview of each potential team and their strengths, weaknesses, goals, and other information. When you hover over each team, a voice-over plays from F1 commentator David Croft that tells you more about the team’s current status and how it got there. The game’s systems will be as important as the overall rules for F1 racing when you start your first playthrough.

It’s been a long, long time since F1 fans have had a licensed management sim that lived up to the dramatic highs of the real thing. A recent surge in interest has opened the door to a possible return to F1 games. Even more remarkable than the timing was its execution. It leaves nothing to be desired. It’s been more than a two-decade wait — but it was more than worth it.

F1 Manager 22 The game was available on Windows PC and PlayStation 4 as well as Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Frontier Developments gave us a pre-release downloading code to review the game on PC. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.