The sound of the engines was electrifying and the constant radio chatter used real samples from F1 engineers and drivers. Even though I couldn’t drive the car, the race was riveting to spectate, with sparks flying at every bump and tires smoking around the corners. There are multiple cameras on the cars that I used to get stuck in to the action. I kept things slow to get a feel for it all. You can play out the races in real-time or speed up to various degrees. Driving more aggressively will decrease lap times but degrade tires faster, meaning earlier pit stops, and make drivers more likely to crash. I gave him the command to burn fuel and rubber and get out in front as best he could. Alonso is an aggressive driver, meaning he’ll seize the gap and try to overtake more often, something my strategy had accounted for and would use to my advantage. I simulated the qualifiers because the clock on the preview was ticking, and I started with Alonso in 7th and Ocon in 11th. It’s all in the name of balance, but the real-world time save isn’t worth the in-game performance loss.įinally, after all the preparation, it was time for the main event: race day.

I also noticed my drivers did around half the laps the others did, so the AI doesn’t favour the player here at all. It got my drivers into a serviceable state, but my reserve driver didn’t get any time on the track, so I’d highly recommend taking charge of the practice laps yourself. The practice sessions and qualifiers can all be simulated to save time, but this put me at the mercy of the game’s AI. It’ll come at the cost of your main drivers’ confidence, but it’s necessary if you want to improve their skills before one of your main drivers retires. These laps are also a good chance to get your reserve driver some practice. This boosts their confidence, something that will greatly affect how they drive come race day. These are used to acclimate your drivers to the track and cars - essential if you’ve added new parts as I had.

I had neither the time nor the skill for the latter, so I just did what the producer recommended and got into the practice sessions.

Pc f1 manager