This is where the Steam Cloud is useless, assuming that you have it switched on. It's on by default.
You close the game and at this point the game save probably got corrupted. Steam then uploads your game profile to the Steam Cloud, but it's just uploaded a corrupted profile.
Of course there is always the possibility that your profile got corrupted on loading, and the Steam Cloud has a good copy of your profile. You could try deleting your game profile folder, in the hope that when you start the game, Steam 'notices' the missing files (it warns you about the file mismatch), and recovers your profile from the cloud ....... but don't hold your breath.
Your profile is stored here :-
YourSteamInstallDrive\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\xxxxxxx\226580
xxxxxxx = Your Steam ID number
226580 is the Steam application number for F1 2014.
If it doesn't work, then that's it, it's broken and you have to start the game again with a new profile.
This whole series (F1 20xx) has been plagued by corrupted game saves, it's a well known 'feature' of the game. Players
MUST backup the profile folder every time they play the game, and keep those copies, not just one copy. This means that if the last save was corrupted, you can work your way back through the backups until it's fixed (usually it's just one save or one grand prix lost).
You can manually back it up, by just copying and pasting the above folder to somewhere safe. You can create or get (online) a vbs script to do it for you, and the script can be run via the Windows task scheduler. Alternatively you can use Game Save Manager to do this.
Game Save Manager doesn't not officially support this game yet, but it does support all the previous games in the series. It usually doesn't take long for them to add support. You can very easily create your own F1 2014 Game Save Manager backup profile, you just have to read their tutorial, and point GSM at the folder in bold text printed above.
You can set GSM to run a backup every day, and if the contents of the F1 2014 Steam profile folder has changed since the last backup, it makes a new (time/date stamped) backup. That's what I do anyway ......... Here are mine stored safely away, after a period I delete some old ones, but they are tiny anyway :-
View attachment 68346
Read my sticky for more details :-
http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...ported-wheels-controllers.93393/#post-1821915
Cheers