The start of a new era

Lando Norris has speared off the Spanish asphalt, hit the barrier on the outside of the fourth corner and retired. This has left us with just young Oscar Piastri (who we drafted in) upholding McLaren’s honour who is currently sitting outside of the points in 11^th. 

This is crucial because the team’s sworn mortal enemy in this version of reality – Valtteri Bottas – is riding high in fourth place. Alfa Romeo sits 10 points ahead of the papaya-painted squad in the constructors’ standings, occupying the fourth place our board demands. 

Time to lower the speed of the race from 16x, to real-time, and micro-manage the Australian’s route to a points-paying finish. Requesting to push on an in-lap, completing a switch to fresh tyres one lap early to undercut the Alpines and switching between Energy Recovery System modes, all with a fetishism of an overbearing boss. In the end, eighth place has never felt so sweet. 

This is F1 Manager 2022 at its zenith, with you, the team principal of any of the real-world Formula 1 squads, overseeing your gang to glory – or in this case, four valuable points. 

Your job is to not only make sure a race strategy reaches its maximum potential but qualifying performance and practice programmes too.

Then, in-between races, you must allocate car development resources and appease the directors, be that through sponsorship objectives or building a helicopter landing pad at the headquarters. 

 

Having the right drivers is key too, being able to scout for replacements, place your reserve driver in for free practice sessions and select from the entire current F1, F2 and F3 grids. The same applies to your main developmental team members too, who can be poached from rival outfits. 

In essence, staying afloat is the main aim. Like Zak Brown with a potentially infinite number of drivers under contract, the pressure is real. Do something too egregious and you will be sacked. 

Constantly judging resources, driver development points, cash reserves and even voting on future rule changes, the majority of gameplay is spent digging around in a menu before receiving an endorphin rush when new front wings have been manufactured – as a head-honcho simulator, analogous to Football Manager, should be. 

 

Once you’ve skipped through the audio-based menu tutorial – which it must be said we encountered an impasse with, not able to progress and having to restart the career – the layout will soon…