F1 Manager 2023 makes the right calls with streamlined tactics and a new mode

Even as a sports management simulation, even if the race was running at 16x speed, F1Manager 2022‘s events can be a pretty meaty affair. Depending on your level of involvement with your driver’s pace, tactics and even fuel and energy deployment, a Grand Prix alone can last an hour or more.

They are about 90 minutes in real life.

So I’m not surprised that F1Manager 2023, coming July 31 from Frontier Developments, leans more towards smaller experiences and some tactical streamlining. That’s not to say there aren’t improvements to last year’s excellent and in-depth factory-to-track experience.

There’s still plenty to serve those wanting a detailed experience; it’s just that they’ll find a new mode where taking that detailed approach won’t take that long.

That new mode is Race Replay, which has two components: Starting Grid, a full Grand Prix that mimics the starting positions, tire choices and track conditions of the real event; and Race Moments, an even smaller experience focused on reaching a race goal in a shorter number of laps. Both are based on real life events in the current Formula 1 season, and Frontier says they will be added F1Manager 2023 after every game.

In a hands-on preview, I started Race Moments and took control of Aston Martin at this year’s rainy Monaco Grand Prix with 24 laps to go. The aim was to get Fernando Alonso into first place (he came second IRL). In fact, right now it’s all about choosing when to pit Alonso for wet-resistant intermediate tyres.

I made that decision; I’m still a new Formula 1 fan and I admit that even basic concepts like timing the undercut (get on better tires before a rival is in front of you) versus staying out longer still eludes me. With Alonso on the hard compound and the track still dry I opted to stay out while everyone pitted. With the track already getting damp by the time Alonso got to the famous Hotel Hairpin, there was no way he could gain enough time on Max Verstappen for that decision to pay off, even if he got another lap.

The meta here, as I understood it, is that the race was effectively decided there; I don’t think a safety car would help me, and unless Verstappen (unlikely) wiped out, it might have been better to just start over. If I’m concerned about Race Moments, it’s whether it really comes down to a single decision to rewrite the result, and then the point where that happens in your part of the event.

Otherwise, it’s a good and even necessary addition to a game that last year was very long in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay. I stayed with the Monaco event to check out some of the new tactical options available F1Manager 2023. There are plenty of them, and they seem, in a quality of life way, to address some of the things that have caused me to constantly have to pause a race in F1Manager 2022 just to make sure I didn’t completely drain a driver’s Energy Recovery System battery (it’s actually a speed boost), or change a pit strategy after my second driver dropped out.

Image: Border developments via Polygoon

That’s why there’s now ERS Battle Assist, which players can turn on for a driver and tell them to reserve some of their battery power to deploy when a car behind them comes within the one-second range of the Drag Reduction System’s zones. This gives me a little more peace of mind that I can give my driver an instruction on battery usage and not still have to do it from lap to lap.

As such, ERS strategies now have four settings instead of five. F1Manager 2022 had somewhat redundant commands on two (Overtake and Defend, both of which used the same amount of energy), and many players went to Deploy (highest output) or Harvest (highest charge) instead. Now Deploy and Harvest are available with Neutral or Top-Up, which is a slower charge level that is less likely to fall behind or be overtaken.

Players also have more detailed instructions for on-track tactics, such as “avoid high-risk curbs”, rather than avoiding them altogether. F1Manager 2022. Some of this wraps around in a new Driver Confidence system, allowing practice sessions and qualifying results to have a little more impact in F1Manager 2023.

Image: Border developments via Polygoon

In last year’s game, players tried to build the driver’s confidence in the car’s setup during the three practices. That setup confidence is still there. Driver Confidence is an in-race feature that starts at a certain percentage and goes up from there. It determines how well that driver will execute certain risky or aggressive tactics. (Besides, you don’t want to do all the work to give a driver 90% confidence and then hold him back for the entire race.) Getting the setup just right is still as inscrutable as ever for me (and led me most of my practices last year), but at least this brings the same concept for something I can understand.

F1Manager 2023 has much more to offer, from a new visor camera image – which mimics the same thing that Formula 1 channels show on TV – to a tire temperature model that includes both surface and carcass temperature, making tire wear more realistic and making those decisions more consequential. In the personnel management layer, you now employ a sporting director who can train the pit crew and shave valuable tenths of a second off your stops.

In everything, F1Manager 2023 is much more than a new livery on a chassis that was pretty damn good to begin with last year. Within a few hours I felt like I could go as deep as I wanted to win, whereas last year I had to go as deep as the game allowed me. That’s a subtle distinction, but it means I’ll be able to get a bigger picture of each race when the game launches at the end of July.