It didn’t take long. From the first properly licensed manager-games in the 90’s until the end of the licensed manager-games. The last one being released in 2000, but based on the 1999-season. It marked the end of an era, a short era filled with potential that never got polished enough. It would also mark the abrupt stop in F1 manager games, even though other kind of manager games, like football and cycling were stepping in to their own golden era. But before we’ll have a look at the end, let’s start with the beginning of the end.
Welome to Arrows Mr.Myrvold, and welcome to F1 Esso! Arrows with Pedro Diniz awaits!
Grand Prix World (1999). After three years, fans of the Grand Prix Manager series would finally get the new game in the series. Ed Grabowski and MicroProse teamed up to make what would be the last game of the manager games in the Grand Prix – series. While released in 1999, the game was based on the 1998 season, and can at times feel like it’s made together with Grand Prix 3, even though that’s not correct. The game is an evolution of the Grand Prix Manager series, even though it looks entirely different. It plays different, it feels different, and it might be the best F1 manager game that have been released in the history of F1 manager games. Just like Grand Prix Manager 2, the game still has an active community around it. In fact, the active community for the two games are largely the same community. This means seasonal mods have been made, and you have editors that can change vital parts of the game, removing some bugs that never was removed from MicroProse, adding real names and all the usual stuff we can see from modding. Just like with my playthrough of Grand Prix Manager 2 for this series of articles. I will be using a remastered version of the original game. This adds real names for non-F1 drivers, adding test-drivers to teams without a test-driver in the original game, adding real life tobacco sponsors (the remaster comes with a choice of that or fake tobacco names). Updated car liveries and some bug-fixes. The car and driver characteristics, salaries and so on have not been changed. It truly is a remaster, not a “random” mod.
Ah, the French GP. Schumacher pits, Diniz is low on fuel. Salo is lapped... It's a very good UI for the late 90's, and a poor manager handling the team!
The game has a smaller pool of just about everything. There are less non-contracted drivers, less engines, less tyre manufacturers and so on. Which, after coming from the mid-90’s games is a bit of a letdown. Not that you’d often have any use of the Nissan or Rolls Royce engines, Yokohama tyres or Naoki Hattori, but it makes it feel like you have more freedom. On the other hand, the negotiation-system for contracts with drivers, sponsors, employees and suppliers have been through a massive overhaul, mostly for the better. It makes it somewhat more difficult to sign all top names and suppliers for a small team, and you’d have to take a route based more on proper reorganizing the whole team, instead of just sign the best and have success. The game also introduces “Team Sponsor”, which is the main sponsor. There are not enough “Team Sponsors” for all teams, but it is a nice feature. If you can't get a Team Sponsor, you can try to convince one of your regular sponsors to fill that spot for a little extra cash. You’ll also have to negotiate a deal with an engine supplier, tyre supplier and fuel supplier. This is not done the way it is in virtually all other manager games, where you click on a supplier, and straight up negotiates, or get a quote on the price. Here you start to negotiate, use resources – both manpower and economical – on the companies during races and VIP-slots. It might fail, it make take a lot of time, or you may have fairly quick success. However, you can spend more time, and try to get a better deal. Often your first breakthrough is a customer-deal. An example can be a customer-deal with Ford, which means that you pay for the engines, you will not be able to influence the R&D and will get updates to the engine late – if ever. With more negotiation and sweet-talking you may be able to get it to a partner-deal. This is cheaper, free, or even carries a bit of a sponsorship. You may have some limited influence on the R&D path and get updates relatively quick. The best would be to get a works deal. That means you get a sponsorship package included in the engines, way more control over the R&D path, and instant access to updates. This means that you would be able to look at your car design at the start of the season, and steer the engine R&D in a direction to either strengthen the weak points of the chassis, or possibly just further the strengths. While you won’t have teams that comes and goes like the previous games in the series. Suppliers might, this can be a bit frustrating, if you spend a year trying to get a works deal with a supplier, just to be told at the start of the new season that the supplier is pulling out of F1 at the end of the year. Even more frustrating as it is harder to negotiate with new suppliers than the ones you already have a working relationship with.
Not as harsh as the TeamF1 alcoholic jab. But the TV audiences have chose Mr.Myrvold as the Worst F1 Manager. Even before Magny Cours. It comes as no surprise that yours truly got fired pretty soon afterwards.
This whole negotiation system gives you more control. More control is something that is a common theme in the game, you have more control of everything. New car focus, sponsors, suppliers and most importantly, drivers. You can really set up a Ferrari-system with a proper dedicated 1st and 2nd driver, with engagement-rules and so on. In that sense, the game is much more complicated than the predecessors, and have a steeper learning-curve. This does give a better feeling when you nail a perfect car, with the right suppliers. Even though you can end up feeling the relatively small amount of suppliers, employees and drivers. Just like Grand Prix Manager 2, Grand Prix World does have pay drivers, which at times can be vital to build a team, especially Pedro Diniz with his very deep pockets can easily be a very important driver to keep/get. Do note that a quirky little coding in the game, makes it impossible to sign Takagi and Diniz to the same team (the two driver with most money to offer at the start of the game), due to them not feeling the other guy is not a team player. On the whole, there's never been a game with such detailed negotiations with all suppliers and sponsors. The races themselves play out pretty normal, but the areas outside the track got a great improvement here. Car development was streamlined, made easier to get into than in the Grand Prix Manager series, while not dumbing it down. You need to do testing, you need to have spare parts, you need to split the focus between this season and next and so on. The off-track managerial part of Grand Prix World is second to none.
Restarting my manager-career with Jordan was a bigger success. Not much money left in the bank though. As you can see, I managed to get a Partner-deal with Goodyear (works werent even a possibility). I kept working with them and got a small sponsorship bonus as well. The same happened with Mugen-Honda, while Mobil 1 gave me Works status, but no bonuses. 1999 were looking good for the Jordan team!
Not only the UI has been changed, but the race screen have also been changed. For it’s time, I’d say that it is quite good, and gives the right vibes and feel of sitting on the pit-wall. The negative of it, is that every session will take longer time. In manager-games there’s often a balance that’s hard to get correct, and that is the balance between how long a race takes in real life, and how quick it can be done in a game, while still getting the right results and the right feel. Personally Grand Prix World is too far to the “long time” side of that line. There’s not that much that’s happening in a race, and a faster simulation would be preferred in such situations.
There’s been additions to the game, but also some setbacks. While drivers can still be injured, it is very rare, and there are no overview on how long they are out for (when it is other teams). It makes it a bit weird to see the test/reserve driver, but never know when the race driver will return. Even though injuries were less common in 1998, they still happened. It’s well worth noting that 2018 is the only year in F1 history where the same drivers who started race 1 of the season, also started every race throughout the season in the same seats. It can be argued that Racing Point replaced Force India as a new entrant, but for all intents and purposes, this was the same seats. The closes to this were 2008, where Super Aguri went bankrupt after 4 races. There wasn’t a single driver swap that year either, but the Super Aguri-guys left. Grand Prix World jumps the boat on this quite a lot. Which, for a manager-game and something that’s supposed to simulate how the real F1 worked is somewhat boring and not great. The normal F1 manager-game issue is well present in this game as well. Ferrari can suddenly drive with Ford engines, or Mercedes, or even Hart. And while there are things put in place to make it harder to sign top drivers to small teams. Top teams suddenly sign less good drivers, and either top names are left out, or they sign for smaller teams regardless. It might be a bit better than many other games, but it’s still not great. The in-game editor is also removed, so you have no way of changing drivers, stats, point-systems and so on if you want to try a different playthrough. Like try out what would happen if Minardi actually got the Mugen-Honda engines they were supposed to have in 1995. Much of these removals (and smaller pool of drivers, engines, suppliers etc.) is something that’s seen in other F1 games from this era as well. While it looked like there used to be quite a bit of freedom in F1 games, for scenarios, small editing (or the whole driver swap with 8 extra drivers in F1 Pole Position 64), as the 90’s went on, F1 games became more and more streamlined and locked. This seems to be the case for the manager games as well. Keeping the freedom from Grand Prix Manager 2, while adding what was added into Grand Prix World would make the game way closer to a perfect manager game than what it is. Even better if they would be able to fix the Ferrari – Hart issue… Regardless of the usual issues and a game that probably could've used some patching and TLC, it is still one of the very best F1 manager games out there, this is due to the fantastic off-track experience in the game. Pay drivers, customer, partner, works deals, time constraints with getting everything done, and actual advantage of good staff etc. Both Grand Prix Manager 2 and Grand Prix World are games that you can easily pick up today, play them, and not feel like they are substandard. If that points to them being great, or that the games that followed were nothing short of awful might be left unsaid.
While the negotiations might've been more complicated, more work needed, and very fun and rewarding. Once you knew the tricks it got easier. The year is 2000. Jordan have a works deal with Peugeot, Bridgestone and Mobil 1 (yes, I kept them). Two paydrivers, ranked 2nd and 3rd with most money they bring. And all the focus was used to get updated engine, fuel and tyres. Race 10 of the season, and Jordan got another 1-2, with Nakano and Takagi as the drivers. The game certainly weren't flawless, and the "sign Diniz for his money and win" trick got known fast.
After Grand Prix World, things would soon get worse, much worse...
Enter EA Sports and F1 Manager (2000/2001). EA didn’t have an exclusive license. That wasn’t a thing yet. But they had released F1 2000 (which, just like F1 Manager would get a re-release in 2001), which was a fairly nice success for their first F1 game. Especially the PC-version which was made by Image Space Incorporated (yes, of rFactor-fame). At this time EA, while known for yearly sporting games, still had a very good reputation of actually making quite good games. All the ball-sport games were successful, the NASCAR-series was viewed in a positive light, even the FIFA Manager series (or FA Premier League Manager as it was known as for some years) were viewed in a positive light. Especially for consoles.
So when it was announced that EA would have an F1 Manager game, it wasn’t an immediate “oh no” reaction. There had just been one major manager-game release since Grand Prix Manager 2 in 1996, and that was Grand Prix World. With EA’s resources and experience, one would expect a game at least at that level, but possibly better. That would be very wrong.
Yes... Well, at least the presentation looks fine. Replacing Schumacher with Takagi however....
There are positives in the game, while possible, I have yet to see Ferrari actually sign other engine deals than Ferrari. At the same time, I have yet to see Arrows sign a deal with something other than “Arrows” as well, and when the engines never change in relation to power, R&D or anything, that means that Arrows will be stuck at the back forever. Anyway, it was about the positives.
Sponsorship are quite easy to get. No more “work for race after race” to get a sponsor. Just find one without a deal with a team, and sign a deal. This works as long as you have enough space on the car, and you don’t already have a similar sponsor. If you already have Petrobras as a sponsor, you will not get Agip, as they are competitors. This is a good thing, as you rarely micro-manage sponsorship deals as a manager. However, this also means that it is pointless forking out money for a Commercial Director with sponsor-skills. It makes it a bit easier to keep a sponsor when the contract runs out, but as you don’t have to actually work with sponsors to get new deals, you can just save yourself the trouble. Find a commercial director with good merchandising skills instead to get some extra cash there. The game includes every driver who drove in the 1999 season, so Mika Salo is a part of the game as a free agent. However, both Sauber and Ferrari have no test driver, and as Mika Salo is the only real life driver in the game without a contract, it means that whatever happens, there will be at least one fake name in a team every season after the first. This might be licensing restrictions, or just EA being lazy.
The sponsors have different contract length depending on how much money they put in. Main sponsors like WinnerF1, White Stripes, Team and other tobacco-replacements are on the car for 16 races, other sponsors can be for 8, 4 or just 2 races for the smallest ones. The way you put on logos and them actually showing up on the car during the race broadcast is quite nice. Well, light blue Benetton colors on a dark blue Prost might not be pleasant to look at, but the idea behind the sponsors and showing them are nice.
A though season in the worst team by far in the game. Do note that to avoid game over at this point, I would've needed to be ahead of Benetton. How that is possible in a car are 15 seconds off pace(! Yes. It is that kind of game...) I have no idea. Also worth mentioning, the menus looks really nice. Different color scheme, pictures etc. depending on what team you are. Easy to understand. It looks very good.
The game looks very good to be a manager-game, especially from the late 90’s early 2000’s. The menus are quite user friendly, easy to understand. The race monitoring is fine, the TV-view is actually quite good, even though the racing is bad. Even when you read about the game, it sounds promising. To do a bit of Wikipedia quoting, together with my own words: “The player takes control of the management of a F1 team from the 1999 season, over a period of 10 years maximum (note: How anyone have bothered to do all those years, I will never know). You can choose between 11 teams, with 2 racing drivers and 1 test drivers (unless you choose Ferrari or Sauber). You have a chief designer, technical director and commercial director. All drivers and directors are hired on a yearly basis, and contracts are done on a first come first server. Throughout the game the performance is assessed by the chairperson of the board, who gives the player objectives to reach every season in relations to team position (or winning both championships). You can hire support staff to all directors. Designers will design and construct performance upgrades, the engineers of the technical director will create spare parts, while the commercial assistants will work to maintain sponsor interest in the team (something I’ve already mentioned are rather pointless). Players can also opt in or out of scheduled test days for car development. Players are given a news screen every time something happens in the world of F1, like teams signing drivers, suppliers or rumours. During the race weekend, you can manage how much a driver will push, change pit stop strategies and so on. Drivers will also give feedback when they return to the pits on how the car acts, and what setup changes are needed. They also report mechanical issues. The race monitor screen, provides information about car/tyre wear, fuel loads etc. while having the option to accelerate or normalize speed.”
For a management game from 2000, the graphics are actually really good. The on screen graphics looks good as well. Worth noting that having changed the front wing sponsor to Agip, it also colors in way more of the nose. Some sponsors, but not all does this.
It sounds quite good. And again, the user interface is intuitive, it looks good. And the way the team produces upgrades, makes spares etc. is simple and very user friendly. The acceleration of time also means that the races will not take too long time (like they do in Grand Prix World). With that said, let’s move on the all the problems the game has.
All drivers and directors have skill-rankings from 0-100, in reality however, 80-100 is the only values that are being used(except for suppliers). It’s also very easy to know the future performance. If you have a chief designer who has a chassis skill of 97 and research skill of 99, you know that your chassis will be ranked at 97, and upgrades will be at 99 with a tiny bit slower research than a chief designer with that skill at 100. That’s how it is. No randomizer here. For the technical director, supplier and assembly skill mainly goes on how fast the department works, I haven’t noticed any major difference in retirements for someone with low assembly skills compared to someone with high assembly skills. Commercial, go with someone who are great on merchandising, sponsors are somewhat irrelevant. So if you have that in mind, and sign a chief designer with great skills, you have your whole director/manager-team sorted.
Time to move on to the suppliers. The suppliers have two parameters they are rated on. Expertise and Resources. Expertise gives a starting point for that part. While resources is how many iterations of it you will get through a year. So an EMS-supplier with 100-100 in rating can start at 94 rating, and give you enough iterations to get to 100. If you have a supplier with 100-83, you might miss out on the last iteration and end up with 99. It’s also a set number per iteration, so the less iterations, the less amount of that part you have for a season. Which is why you’ll easily see the poorer teams retire on lap 1 with “engine” or “electronics” failure the last 1-4 races in the season. Anyway, for EMS and brakes, go for 100-100. Engines are the most expensive, but if you have money to change. It’s no difference if you go for the worst Ford-engine or the best Mercedes. New supplier is the same cost. So go for the Merc-engine. In the game, Ferrari are the only ones who can choose Ferrari as an engine supplier and Arrows are the only ones able to choose Arrows. Anyway, Mercedes is the engine to have. Now it’s time to choose drivers for the next season. You’ll quickly see that most drivers are falling in overall rating. This is due to a moral-bug, so unless they are winning consistently – moral falls, and thus the overall rating. Never mind that, look at other skills. It’s good to have a quick driver, but a mid-tier driver is very often good enough. Remember to sign sponsors, which always gives a “yes” as an answer as long as you have space. Oh… and test driver. Go for a fake driver. Why? Because they are cheap and you need to have a test-driver, even though it is a complete waste of money. Don’t spend time on test-days, it just puts wear on your car. There are no reason what so ever to do a test day. There is nothing to test, there is nothing to gain. It’s just… there. As opposed to something that isn’t in the game… rain.
Anyway, you now have a perfect recipe for the future. You got AP Racing Brakes, Magnet Marelli Electronics, Mercedes-Benz engines. Chief Designer from either Ferrari or McLaren, and the tech.director you want, and commercial boss you want. You have signed a couple of acceptable drivers, like Damon Hill and Mika Salo, with a fake test driver. The year 2000 is looking perfect. Why do you know that? Because no stats changes value at all during a game. That’s right. It’s all the same, every single season in every single game. Even Grand Prix Manager had evolution on driver skill, director skills and supplier strength. Not here. So, yes. The year 2000 are now set. Time to move to a race. There is a single formula to follow: Practice; Outlap and pit. No timed lap. That’s enough to get driver feedback, and you put as little wear on the car as possible. Do this until you have nailed the setup for both cars.
Suzuka is finished in my first season of my Williams playthrough. Benetton in 6th took less points than in my Arrows playthrough, but it wouldn't have helped my time at Arrows. I barely kept my job at Williams as the demands was 2nd in the WCC. Phew.
Qualifying: Outlap as normal, then “Risk Everything” for 1 or 2 laps. Pit, and don’t bother going out again. Oh and yes, the 20 seconds difference in laptime between McLaren and Arrows at Melbourne. Completely normal.
Now remember what I said about the values from 0-100, but only 80-100 are used (except for suppliers). At Melbourne, McLaren may have a car rating at 94/95, while Arrows is at 87. That’s 20 seconds a lap. Something clearly went wrong here.
Anyway, you’ve done qualifying. Time to look at the race. According to your technical director, a 1 stop is fastest due to low tyre wear. Ignore that. 3 stop strategy is king. Start the race, and ask your drivers to push. Use accelerate time, until lap 11-12, and follow tyre wear. When the wear is at 10/11%. Change the drivers order from push to “hold position”. Do that until pitstop, and then “push” again. Do that for the whole race and it will be the fastest strategy no matter what. The reason for this is simple. The difference in laptimes in this game is insane. That also goes for “hold position” vs “push”. So you gain back that pit-stop time easily.
Do this in 16 races, keep putting on new upgrades and it’s all fine. If you play as a little team like Minardi, Prost, Sauber, which have suppliers with very low economy. When you reach race 7 of the season, don’t use the newest parts, and maybe use some parts 2 races in a row. You are now in the part of the season where you don’t want to push hard. The first few races you are often quicker in relation to the teams around due to fast designing of new parts. Then in the middle of the season the others have caught up. However, remember what I said about the last races and teams retiring? All other teams, even the top ones, have used up all their top parts. So if you have saved up some great engines and parts, you will suddenly have a relatively quick car and you can score some great points. This can be very important. Because, even if you have signed good drivers, the best suppliers, have designed a new chassis, and the financial projection is profit. You will be fired if you don’t reach the objectives that are set for you. Some of those can be impossible. McLaren is, win both WDC and WCC. Which is doable. Ferrari wants one of the titles. Jordan wants a top three, Benetton top 4 (IIRC). Stewart only a top 6 in WCC, probably the easiest. Williams is 2nd in WCC. Remember that McLaren and Ferrari are dominant. This is viewed as the second hardest objective in the game. BAR wants a top 6, that’s doable, but not the easiest. Sauber wants a top 5 (IIRC), this is seen as the joint third hardest in the game. Prost wants a top 8, joint third hardest with Sauber, mainly due to awful Peugeot engines. Minardi wants a top 10, which is quite easy. Arrows however. The worst team in the game, demands a top 6. No matter what you do, if you don’t reach the objective you will be fired and it is game over. One would think that no game is made so something is impossible. However, unless you cheat or change the game-files, Arrows is in practice impossible.
First race in the new season with Williams. When Ferrari had issues, and McLaren uses the second worst engines in the game. It was a win for Olivier Panis in the Williams-Mercedes. Oh, and do you wonder why Alesi is 6th and 9m30seconds behind? Finish is after all laps are done for the top 6, not on the same lap as the leader finishes the race...
What's written above is basically the whole game. Survive season 1, sign the same suppliers as always. Repeat for 9 more seasons. Nothing changes in terms of skills of any supplier or person. You don’t have driver stats with wins etc. like you have in the Grand Prix – series. It’s a barebone, rushed, bugged, quite bad game, that looks good and is easy to pick up. It’s quite clear why Grand Prix Manager 2 and Grand Prix World is the games with the biggest modding community around it, and not F1 Manager. This game is also the last licensed F1 manager game that has been made until 2022. One could say that F1 Manager from EA Sports killed of the genre, but there has been many unlicensed efforts since. Most of them overdoing each other in trying to be the worst ever made, before an unlikely rescue happened. Which is likely the catalyst for the upcoming F1 Manager 22, that however, is something for next time.
Grand Prix World (1999). After three years, fans of the Grand Prix Manager series would finally get the new game in the series. Ed Grabowski and MicroProse teamed up to make what would be the last game of the manager games in the Grand Prix – series. While released in 1999, the game was based on the 1998 season, and can at times feel like it’s made together with Grand Prix 3, even though that’s not correct. The game is an evolution of the Grand Prix Manager series, even though it looks entirely different. It plays different, it feels different, and it might be the best F1 manager game that have been released in the history of F1 manager games. Just like Grand Prix Manager 2, the game still has an active community around it. In fact, the active community for the two games are largely the same community. This means seasonal mods have been made, and you have editors that can change vital parts of the game, removing some bugs that never was removed from MicroProse, adding real names and all the usual stuff we can see from modding. Just like with my playthrough of Grand Prix Manager 2 for this series of articles. I will be using a remastered version of the original game. This adds real names for non-F1 drivers, adding test-drivers to teams without a test-driver in the original game, adding real life tobacco sponsors (the remaster comes with a choice of that or fake tobacco names). Updated car liveries and some bug-fixes. The car and driver characteristics, salaries and so on have not been changed. It truly is a remaster, not a “random” mod.
The game has a smaller pool of just about everything. There are less non-contracted drivers, less engines, less tyre manufacturers and so on. Which, after coming from the mid-90’s games is a bit of a letdown. Not that you’d often have any use of the Nissan or Rolls Royce engines, Yokohama tyres or Naoki Hattori, but it makes it feel like you have more freedom. On the other hand, the negotiation-system for contracts with drivers, sponsors, employees and suppliers have been through a massive overhaul, mostly for the better. It makes it somewhat more difficult to sign all top names and suppliers for a small team, and you’d have to take a route based more on proper reorganizing the whole team, instead of just sign the best and have success. The game also introduces “Team Sponsor”, which is the main sponsor. There are not enough “Team Sponsors” for all teams, but it is a nice feature. If you can't get a Team Sponsor, you can try to convince one of your regular sponsors to fill that spot for a little extra cash. You’ll also have to negotiate a deal with an engine supplier, tyre supplier and fuel supplier. This is not done the way it is in virtually all other manager games, where you click on a supplier, and straight up negotiates, or get a quote on the price. Here you start to negotiate, use resources – both manpower and economical – on the companies during races and VIP-slots. It might fail, it make take a lot of time, or you may have fairly quick success. However, you can spend more time, and try to get a better deal. Often your first breakthrough is a customer-deal. An example can be a customer-deal with Ford, which means that you pay for the engines, you will not be able to influence the R&D and will get updates to the engine late – if ever. With more negotiation and sweet-talking you may be able to get it to a partner-deal. This is cheaper, free, or even carries a bit of a sponsorship. You may have some limited influence on the R&D path and get updates relatively quick. The best would be to get a works deal. That means you get a sponsorship package included in the engines, way more control over the R&D path, and instant access to updates. This means that you would be able to look at your car design at the start of the season, and steer the engine R&D in a direction to either strengthen the weak points of the chassis, or possibly just further the strengths. While you won’t have teams that comes and goes like the previous games in the series. Suppliers might, this can be a bit frustrating, if you spend a year trying to get a works deal with a supplier, just to be told at the start of the new season that the supplier is pulling out of F1 at the end of the year. Even more frustrating as it is harder to negotiate with new suppliers than the ones you already have a working relationship with.
This whole negotiation system gives you more control. More control is something that is a common theme in the game, you have more control of everything. New car focus, sponsors, suppliers and most importantly, drivers. You can really set up a Ferrari-system with a proper dedicated 1st and 2nd driver, with engagement-rules and so on. In that sense, the game is much more complicated than the predecessors, and have a steeper learning-curve. This does give a better feeling when you nail a perfect car, with the right suppliers. Even though you can end up feeling the relatively small amount of suppliers, employees and drivers. Just like Grand Prix Manager 2, Grand Prix World does have pay drivers, which at times can be vital to build a team, especially Pedro Diniz with his very deep pockets can easily be a very important driver to keep/get. Do note that a quirky little coding in the game, makes it impossible to sign Takagi and Diniz to the same team (the two driver with most money to offer at the start of the game), due to them not feeling the other guy is not a team player. On the whole, there's never been a game with such detailed negotiations with all suppliers and sponsors. The races themselves play out pretty normal, but the areas outside the track got a great improvement here. Car development was streamlined, made easier to get into than in the Grand Prix Manager series, while not dumbing it down. You need to do testing, you need to have spare parts, you need to split the focus between this season and next and so on. The off-track managerial part of Grand Prix World is second to none.
Not only the UI has been changed, but the race screen have also been changed. For it’s time, I’d say that it is quite good, and gives the right vibes and feel of sitting on the pit-wall. The negative of it, is that every session will take longer time. In manager-games there’s often a balance that’s hard to get correct, and that is the balance between how long a race takes in real life, and how quick it can be done in a game, while still getting the right results and the right feel. Personally Grand Prix World is too far to the “long time” side of that line. There’s not that much that’s happening in a race, and a faster simulation would be preferred in such situations.
There’s been additions to the game, but also some setbacks. While drivers can still be injured, it is very rare, and there are no overview on how long they are out for (when it is other teams). It makes it a bit weird to see the test/reserve driver, but never know when the race driver will return. Even though injuries were less common in 1998, they still happened. It’s well worth noting that 2018 is the only year in F1 history where the same drivers who started race 1 of the season, also started every race throughout the season in the same seats. It can be argued that Racing Point replaced Force India as a new entrant, but for all intents and purposes, this was the same seats. The closes to this were 2008, where Super Aguri went bankrupt after 4 races. There wasn’t a single driver swap that year either, but the Super Aguri-guys left. Grand Prix World jumps the boat on this quite a lot. Which, for a manager-game and something that’s supposed to simulate how the real F1 worked is somewhat boring and not great. The normal F1 manager-game issue is well present in this game as well. Ferrari can suddenly drive with Ford engines, or Mercedes, or even Hart. And while there are things put in place to make it harder to sign top drivers to small teams. Top teams suddenly sign less good drivers, and either top names are left out, or they sign for smaller teams regardless. It might be a bit better than many other games, but it’s still not great. The in-game editor is also removed, so you have no way of changing drivers, stats, point-systems and so on if you want to try a different playthrough. Like try out what would happen if Minardi actually got the Mugen-Honda engines they were supposed to have in 1995. Much of these removals (and smaller pool of drivers, engines, suppliers etc.) is something that’s seen in other F1 games from this era as well. While it looked like there used to be quite a bit of freedom in F1 games, for scenarios, small editing (or the whole driver swap with 8 extra drivers in F1 Pole Position 64), as the 90’s went on, F1 games became more and more streamlined and locked. This seems to be the case for the manager games as well. Keeping the freedom from Grand Prix Manager 2, while adding what was added into Grand Prix World would make the game way closer to a perfect manager game than what it is. Even better if they would be able to fix the Ferrari – Hart issue… Regardless of the usual issues and a game that probably could've used some patching and TLC, it is still one of the very best F1 manager games out there, this is due to the fantastic off-track experience in the game. Pay drivers, customer, partner, works deals, time constraints with getting everything done, and actual advantage of good staff etc. Both Grand Prix Manager 2 and Grand Prix World are games that you can easily pick up today, play them, and not feel like they are substandard. If that points to them being great, or that the games that followed were nothing short of awful might be left unsaid.
After Grand Prix World, things would soon get worse, much worse...
Enter EA Sports and F1 Manager (2000/2001). EA didn’t have an exclusive license. That wasn’t a thing yet. But they had released F1 2000 (which, just like F1 Manager would get a re-release in 2001), which was a fairly nice success for their first F1 game. Especially the PC-version which was made by Image Space Incorporated (yes, of rFactor-fame). At this time EA, while known for yearly sporting games, still had a very good reputation of actually making quite good games. All the ball-sport games were successful, the NASCAR-series was viewed in a positive light, even the FIFA Manager series (or FA Premier League Manager as it was known as for some years) were viewed in a positive light. Especially for consoles.
So when it was announced that EA would have an F1 Manager game, it wasn’t an immediate “oh no” reaction. There had just been one major manager-game release since Grand Prix Manager 2 in 1996, and that was Grand Prix World. With EA’s resources and experience, one would expect a game at least at that level, but possibly better. That would be very wrong.
There are positives in the game, while possible, I have yet to see Ferrari actually sign other engine deals than Ferrari. At the same time, I have yet to see Arrows sign a deal with something other than “Arrows” as well, and when the engines never change in relation to power, R&D or anything, that means that Arrows will be stuck at the back forever. Anyway, it was about the positives.
Sponsorship are quite easy to get. No more “work for race after race” to get a sponsor. Just find one without a deal with a team, and sign a deal. This works as long as you have enough space on the car, and you don’t already have a similar sponsor. If you already have Petrobras as a sponsor, you will not get Agip, as they are competitors. This is a good thing, as you rarely micro-manage sponsorship deals as a manager. However, this also means that it is pointless forking out money for a Commercial Director with sponsor-skills. It makes it a bit easier to keep a sponsor when the contract runs out, but as you don’t have to actually work with sponsors to get new deals, you can just save yourself the trouble. Find a commercial director with good merchandising skills instead to get some extra cash there. The game includes every driver who drove in the 1999 season, so Mika Salo is a part of the game as a free agent. However, both Sauber and Ferrari have no test driver, and as Mika Salo is the only real life driver in the game without a contract, it means that whatever happens, there will be at least one fake name in a team every season after the first. This might be licensing restrictions, or just EA being lazy.
The sponsors have different contract length depending on how much money they put in. Main sponsors like WinnerF1, White Stripes, Team and other tobacco-replacements are on the car for 16 races, other sponsors can be for 8, 4 or just 2 races for the smallest ones. The way you put on logos and them actually showing up on the car during the race broadcast is quite nice. Well, light blue Benetton colors on a dark blue Prost might not be pleasant to look at, but the idea behind the sponsors and showing them are nice.
The game looks very good to be a manager-game, especially from the late 90’s early 2000’s. The menus are quite user friendly, easy to understand. The race monitoring is fine, the TV-view is actually quite good, even though the racing is bad. Even when you read about the game, it sounds promising. To do a bit of Wikipedia quoting, together with my own words: “The player takes control of the management of a F1 team from the 1999 season, over a period of 10 years maximum (note: How anyone have bothered to do all those years, I will never know). You can choose between 11 teams, with 2 racing drivers and 1 test drivers (unless you choose Ferrari or Sauber). You have a chief designer, technical director and commercial director. All drivers and directors are hired on a yearly basis, and contracts are done on a first come first server. Throughout the game the performance is assessed by the chairperson of the board, who gives the player objectives to reach every season in relations to team position (or winning both championships). You can hire support staff to all directors. Designers will design and construct performance upgrades, the engineers of the technical director will create spare parts, while the commercial assistants will work to maintain sponsor interest in the team (something I’ve already mentioned are rather pointless). Players can also opt in or out of scheduled test days for car development. Players are given a news screen every time something happens in the world of F1, like teams signing drivers, suppliers or rumours. During the race weekend, you can manage how much a driver will push, change pit stop strategies and so on. Drivers will also give feedback when they return to the pits on how the car acts, and what setup changes are needed. They also report mechanical issues. The race monitor screen, provides information about car/tyre wear, fuel loads etc. while having the option to accelerate or normalize speed.”
It sounds quite good. And again, the user interface is intuitive, it looks good. And the way the team produces upgrades, makes spares etc. is simple and very user friendly. The acceleration of time also means that the races will not take too long time (like they do in Grand Prix World). With that said, let’s move on the all the problems the game has.
All drivers and directors have skill-rankings from 0-100, in reality however, 80-100 is the only values that are being used(except for suppliers). It’s also very easy to know the future performance. If you have a chief designer who has a chassis skill of 97 and research skill of 99, you know that your chassis will be ranked at 97, and upgrades will be at 99 with a tiny bit slower research than a chief designer with that skill at 100. That’s how it is. No randomizer here. For the technical director, supplier and assembly skill mainly goes on how fast the department works, I haven’t noticed any major difference in retirements for someone with low assembly skills compared to someone with high assembly skills. Commercial, go with someone who are great on merchandising, sponsors are somewhat irrelevant. So if you have that in mind, and sign a chief designer with great skills, you have your whole director/manager-team sorted.
Time to move on to the suppliers. The suppliers have two parameters they are rated on. Expertise and Resources. Expertise gives a starting point for that part. While resources is how many iterations of it you will get through a year. So an EMS-supplier with 100-100 in rating can start at 94 rating, and give you enough iterations to get to 100. If you have a supplier with 100-83, you might miss out on the last iteration and end up with 99. It’s also a set number per iteration, so the less iterations, the less amount of that part you have for a season. Which is why you’ll easily see the poorer teams retire on lap 1 with “engine” or “electronics” failure the last 1-4 races in the season. Anyway, for EMS and brakes, go for 100-100. Engines are the most expensive, but if you have money to change. It’s no difference if you go for the worst Ford-engine or the best Mercedes. New supplier is the same cost. So go for the Merc-engine. In the game, Ferrari are the only ones who can choose Ferrari as an engine supplier and Arrows are the only ones able to choose Arrows. Anyway, Mercedes is the engine to have. Now it’s time to choose drivers for the next season. You’ll quickly see that most drivers are falling in overall rating. This is due to a moral-bug, so unless they are winning consistently – moral falls, and thus the overall rating. Never mind that, look at other skills. It’s good to have a quick driver, but a mid-tier driver is very often good enough. Remember to sign sponsors, which always gives a “yes” as an answer as long as you have space. Oh… and test driver. Go for a fake driver. Why? Because they are cheap and you need to have a test-driver, even though it is a complete waste of money. Don’t spend time on test-days, it just puts wear on your car. There are no reason what so ever to do a test day. There is nothing to test, there is nothing to gain. It’s just… there. As opposed to something that isn’t in the game… rain.
Anyway, you now have a perfect recipe for the future. You got AP Racing Brakes, Magnet Marelli Electronics, Mercedes-Benz engines. Chief Designer from either Ferrari or McLaren, and the tech.director you want, and commercial boss you want. You have signed a couple of acceptable drivers, like Damon Hill and Mika Salo, with a fake test driver. The year 2000 is looking perfect. Why do you know that? Because no stats changes value at all during a game. That’s right. It’s all the same, every single season in every single game. Even Grand Prix Manager had evolution on driver skill, director skills and supplier strength. Not here. So, yes. The year 2000 are now set. Time to move to a race. There is a single formula to follow: Practice; Outlap and pit. No timed lap. That’s enough to get driver feedback, and you put as little wear on the car as possible. Do this until you have nailed the setup for both cars.
Qualifying: Outlap as normal, then “Risk Everything” for 1 or 2 laps. Pit, and don’t bother going out again. Oh and yes, the 20 seconds difference in laptime between McLaren and Arrows at Melbourne. Completely normal.
Now remember what I said about the values from 0-100, but only 80-100 are used (except for suppliers). At Melbourne, McLaren may have a car rating at 94/95, while Arrows is at 87. That’s 20 seconds a lap. Something clearly went wrong here.
Anyway, you’ve done qualifying. Time to look at the race. According to your technical director, a 1 stop is fastest due to low tyre wear. Ignore that. 3 stop strategy is king. Start the race, and ask your drivers to push. Use accelerate time, until lap 11-12, and follow tyre wear. When the wear is at 10/11%. Change the drivers order from push to “hold position”. Do that until pitstop, and then “push” again. Do that for the whole race and it will be the fastest strategy no matter what. The reason for this is simple. The difference in laptimes in this game is insane. That also goes for “hold position” vs “push”. So you gain back that pit-stop time easily.
Do this in 16 races, keep putting on new upgrades and it’s all fine. If you play as a little team like Minardi, Prost, Sauber, which have suppliers with very low economy. When you reach race 7 of the season, don’t use the newest parts, and maybe use some parts 2 races in a row. You are now in the part of the season where you don’t want to push hard. The first few races you are often quicker in relation to the teams around due to fast designing of new parts. Then in the middle of the season the others have caught up. However, remember what I said about the last races and teams retiring? All other teams, even the top ones, have used up all their top parts. So if you have saved up some great engines and parts, you will suddenly have a relatively quick car and you can score some great points. This can be very important. Because, even if you have signed good drivers, the best suppliers, have designed a new chassis, and the financial projection is profit. You will be fired if you don’t reach the objectives that are set for you. Some of those can be impossible. McLaren is, win both WDC and WCC. Which is doable. Ferrari wants one of the titles. Jordan wants a top three, Benetton top 4 (IIRC). Stewart only a top 6 in WCC, probably the easiest. Williams is 2nd in WCC. Remember that McLaren and Ferrari are dominant. This is viewed as the second hardest objective in the game. BAR wants a top 6, that’s doable, but not the easiest. Sauber wants a top 5 (IIRC), this is seen as the joint third hardest in the game. Prost wants a top 8, joint third hardest with Sauber, mainly due to awful Peugeot engines. Minardi wants a top 10, which is quite easy. Arrows however. The worst team in the game, demands a top 6. No matter what you do, if you don’t reach the objective you will be fired and it is game over. One would think that no game is made so something is impossible. However, unless you cheat or change the game-files, Arrows is in practice impossible.
What's written above is basically the whole game. Survive season 1, sign the same suppliers as always. Repeat for 9 more seasons. Nothing changes in terms of skills of any supplier or person. You don’t have driver stats with wins etc. like you have in the Grand Prix – series. It’s a barebone, rushed, bugged, quite bad game, that looks good and is easy to pick up. It’s quite clear why Grand Prix Manager 2 and Grand Prix World is the games with the biggest modding community around it, and not F1 Manager. This game is also the last licensed F1 manager game that has been made until 2022. One could say that F1 Manager from EA Sports killed of the genre, but there has been many unlicensed efforts since. Most of them overdoing each other in trying to be the worst ever made, before an unlikely rescue happened. Which is likely the catalyst for the upcoming F1 Manager 22, that however, is something for next time.
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