Hands-on with F1 Manager 2024: Our first impressions of the new game

F1 fans can look forward to a summer of gaming with Frontier’s latest manager title ‘F1 Manager 2024’ releasing on July 23. 

F1 Manager 2024 continues to build on the success of its predecessor with the addition of a couple of neat new game modes.

Last week, Crash.net F1 journalist Connor McDonagh had the chance to play a preview build of F1 Manager 2024, venturing into two of their biggest new features for this year. 

Create A Team

There’s no doubt that the biggest selling point of this year’s title is the ‘Create A Team’ mode, giving players the option to create their own constructor to join the 2024 F1 grid. 

Unlike Andretti, your team will become F1's 11th entry, allowing players to go up against the likes of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.

Players will have complete autonomy on what the team will look like, from team name, car livery, the logo, race suits and race helmets. 

The level of creativity was more than adequate, particularly around the team logo side of things which was described as having a “photoshop-like” system.

In terms of the livery, players are given plenty of freedom to choose specifically where they want to place their sponsor logos - with sponsor management a significant part of running your own F1 team. 

Aside from the usual bells and whistles you’d expect with creating your own team, players are given the option of deciding the “origins” of their new constructor.

Effectively, this decides how easy you want to make your journey. Whether you arrive in Bahrain with a world class outfit capable of immediately taking it to Red Bull or a more conventional road to glory with a long term view of going from the back of the grid to the front, there's an option for everyone.

There are at least six options for the players to choose from, which in turn, impacts the drivers, engineers and team personnel you can sign. 

For the preview event, we were given reasonable freedom to do as we pleased when building up our own outfit.

It was the perfect chance to reunite Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas at CMG Racing, with Peter Bonnington and Gianpiero Lambiase as race engineers. 

After the team customisation was done and dusted, it was straight into Bahrain.

F1 Manager veterans will be familiar with the rest of the weekend, so there were not too many surprises. Given the lack of play time, it was difficult to gauge the impact of the new penalty system or the dynamic team AI, but everything else ran relatively smoothly. 

The ‘Create A Team’ mode delivered as expected and should keep players engaged for even longer than before.

Mechanical Failures

The second part of the preview event was based around a fictional ‘Race Replay’ scenario. 

While managing the Red Bull team at the Australian Grand Prix, players are tested on their ability to manage mechanical failures.

Mechanical failures have been a key addition to this year’s title, giving players an added challenge in terms of managing components during the seasons or during sessions themselves. 

In my case, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez encountered ERS-related issues.

While Verstappen was able to take the lead, he soon lost the ability to recharge his battery and thus dropped down the order having lost that crucial electrical power. 

Similarly with Perez, his issue was more severe, losing ERS power entirely.

Frustrating? Perhaps, but an interesting challenge nonetheless. More importantly, it seems that the specific issue and when it occurs is unique to each player, thus, making it difficult to counteract if you wanted to replay the scenario. 

One criticism of the ‘Race Replay’ mode last year, at least in the case with Fernando Alonso in Monaco, it appeared that making a decision to pit for the intermediates was identical each time you played it making the replayability factor non-existent.

Final thoughts

Overall, my experience of F1 Manager 2024 was overwhelmingly positive. The game ran incredibly smoothly without any issues, allowing me to enjoy the stunning visuals and overall immersive experience.

The ‘Create A Team’ mode is a big win for players, particularly with the diverse options available from a creativity standpoint.

The level of detail and control you have over races, combined with how visually stunning the game looks makes it an enjoyable experience.

Frontier also deserve praise for putting the retail price at just £29.99 in a world where buying a video game costs an extortionate amount of money, usually closer to £69.99.

F1 Manager 2024 will launch on July 23 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for a suggested retail price of £29.99/$34.99/€34.99, with the Deluxe Edition available for a suggested retail price of £39.99/$44.99/€44.99.