Last night, Frontier Developments hosted a live stream to showcase additions coming to F1 Manager 23, including team switching, when it releases later this month. Here’s all you need to know.
A month after EA’s F1 23 and we are anticipating yet another Formula One release. At the end of July, Frontier Developments will launch its second racing title, F1 Manager 23. With the 31 July release date approaching fast, the team is busy showing off what it has been up to during development.
Last night, Frontier hosted the latest in a series of live streams going over additions to the game. This time around, the focus was the new Team Switching feature. But there was plenty more to talk about during the hour-long chat. Here’s all you need to know.
Sporting Director in F1 Manager 23
After spending time looking through an overhauled menu system inbound for F1 Manager 23, fans were introduced to a new team member coming to the game. Joining the selection of Race Engineers, Aero Head and Technical Chief will be the Sporting Director. This addition will give players greater control over the pit crew.
In fact, pit stops have received a major overhaul this year. No longer will players only be competing for on-track points, podiums and wins. Now, they can can also push their luck by trying to win the DHL Fastest Pit stop Award. This means that pit crew training and confidence is far more in depth than last year’s game.
This increased depth allows players to set training schedules for their pit crew. Deciding when the team works out, rests or practices their pit stops will be crucial to reducing pit stop times all whilst cutting out errors. Email debriefs after each race will provide insight into which areas of a pit stop is lacking. This should make for an interactive side quest as a team goes for the pit stop award alongside their championship battles.
Driver Development
Alongside an extensive pit crew management system, players will have to push their drivers to develop throughout their career. An intricate system combining results, training, fatigue, confidence and age will allow drivers to grow their level points.
By moulding a driver’s training regime around certain aspects of a race weekend, one can help the athlete improve. However, over-do the training and the driver will get tired, in turn reducing the points associated with said characteristic. According to the developers, younger drivers will have a greater ability to improve their skills fast. Older drivers on the other hand may find themselves losing skill points, despite having acceptable weekends.
This new mechanic will force players to keep an eye on the equally new simulated feeder series. Young talents in F2 and F3 will also grow their potential throughout each season. Players will be able to sign them to young driver programs in the hopes of bringing them onto the F1 team in future years. Sign a younger driver and risk a onboarding a racer with low skill points. But with youth comes flexibility and that young talent will soon mould themselves into a promising candidate after some effort from the player.
F1 Manager 23 Team Switching
For the 2023 edition of the F1 Manager games, players will be able to change teams throughout their career. In fact, rather than taking the role of a Christian Horner or Fred Vasseur, one will replace them during their time at the team.
But at certain points throughout a season or career, one will get the opportunity to switch teams. Depending on your performance and ability to manage a team, other outfits may offer you a contract. However, perform poorly and your current team may decide to fire you. This will result in having to find a role in a lowly team to rebuild your Team Manager stock. Not available at launch, Team Switching will reportedly become part of F1 Manager 23 in Autumn through a post-release update.
On-track in F1 Manager 23
Aside from the management aspects, F1 Manager 23 has received many changes on the racing front. When it comes to strategy, players will have to think more about what they are doing in different conditions as tyres will be simulated in a more realistic way. More specifically, tyre temperatures will have a greater effect on degradation. As a result, keeping everything in the window will be crucial.
Elsewhere, driver confidence makes a return from outside the game’s menu screens. When battling on-track, good moves, successful defence and fast lap times will increase a driver’s confidence. This will allow them to go for riskier moves without causing an incident. It’s important to manage what a driver is doing based on their confidence bar.
To increase the challenge further, the AI is also getting several improvements this year. When it comes to strategy, other teams will react to what the player does. They will also evolve their race-long plan according to the weather and possibilities around.
Pre-Order F1 Manager 23
F1 Manager 23 releases on 31 July. But it is now available to pre-order, which will provide early access from 27 July. Pre-ordering also comes with three unique race scenarios akin to those found in the Race Replay mode Frontier unveiled a few weeks ago.
The base game costs £44.99 or €54.99 whilst the Deluxe Edition with a further 12 exclusive scenarios comes in at £54.99 or €64.99. The game is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S and X, PS4 and PS5.
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