Weird, sure, however our driver, Albon, refused to overtake him and we lost twenty seconds to the car in front completely destroying any hope we had of a higher placed finish. Instead Zhou got himself out of the barrier and, at a snail’s pace, proceeded to the pits. Surely his car would be too damaged to continue and a safety car would be deployed. Our eyes lit up when Zhou crashed at Le Portier, a corner made famous in 1988 when Ayrton Senna exited that year’s Monaco race, got out of his car and walked to his nearby apartment. At the Monaco Grand Prix we had a pretty average qualifying session but high hopes for the race through an aggressive strategy. Speaking of crashes, at time of writing, the damage model of F1 Manager 2022 needs some serious tweaking. This is also helped by a very visually pleasing race engine which, for the most part, looks pretty damn good for what is a management sim but don’t expect detailed crash physics: this engine has its limits. It’s all in there and, despite occasional repetitiveness, it helps create some decent immersion. Starting with the positive though, the race day presentation is spot on, from Crofty’s introduction to the race weekend to occasional commentary moments when disaster strikes on track. Unfortunately, it is also where some of its major weaknesses are cruelly exposed. Race day is where F1 Manager 2022 really comes alive and shows off plenty of its strengths. Mind you, Austria might have gone better if Albon hadn’t spun Driver moves are a thing and if you want to unceremoniously dump one of the set drivers in your first season - which I did, sorry Latifi - you can absolutely do so. If you manage this properly, you might be able to get an absolute star in your car for significantly less outlay than picking up an established driver in the open market. To that end, you will have your third, known as a reserve driver, who you can develop to replace one of your drivers down the track. As a team principal it’s important that you look ahead as well as what is in front of you. Whilst the feeder F2 and F3 series aren’t playable - an inclusion in the future perhaps - they do provide a pool of potential stars of the future. You can change drivers, spend some money but success will be finishing in the midfield and overhauling your nearest competitor. If you choose a back of the field team like I did, you will find your first season tough. Whilst this does help your driver feel more confident and hopefully faster, it doesn’t guarantee a result. Overall, F1 Manager 2022 does a pretty good job of showing you the ropes and before too long, if you’re like me, you are taking control of all the sessions, tweaking the car in the hopes of hitting your driver’s optimal setup. Say little-to-nothing and the learning curve can be too harsh. Make all the decisions for the player with little wiggle room and it’s holding your hand too much. This is as close as we got to points in our first season, the Red Bull Ring suiting our car the most Equally, once you make it to the race itself, it’s just assumed you’re good to go in terms of when to tell your driver to push and when to back off. Get this right and your driver is much more confident and, by extension, faster. This is a crucial component in your race weekend. Whilst the tutorial commits you to simulating the first practice session it feels like a missed opportunity to take you through car setup. Unfortunately it would take time to arrive and the Bahrain Grand Prix was coming up almost straight away. In the end, a new rear wing was commissioned to be designed. Better facilities would likely yield better parts and better cars moving forward but to get more money we had to perform well on race weekends. Given our Williams car was pretty awful in any category it was tough to know where to start. Information is given about what you can do in each of the home screen sections, but you’re left to your own devices beyond that with very few predetermined first steps. Once you’ve picked your team, you are carried through each screen and event for the first time by the rather helpful and yet not too overbearing tutorial. You could say that F1 Manager 2022 is a spiritual successor since a sequel has not emerged from Playground Games in the intervening six years since Motorsport Manager’s 2016 PC launch. It’s not a carbon copy but you’ll feel very much at home on the pit wall. If you’ve played Playground Games’ Motorsport Manager then a lot of things will seem very familiar. I do miss the old, early nineties Williams livery.
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