Motorsport Manager - F1 Management Game

[Penfold]

Motorsport Manager has been out on Steam for a while. It's 50% off today through Friday. I just bought my copy, it could be worth giving it a go. I'll get back to you when I've tried it out to let you know if it's any good. Reviews are positive though.

Cheers for the heads up.  Be interested to hear your thoughts.

[Penfold]

Completely forgot to grab a copy.  Was it worth the cash?

[Chrill]

Definitely.

The manager aspect of the game (the main mode) lets you take control of a team from any of these 3 categories:

World Motorsport Championship
Asia-Pacific Super Cup
European Racing Series

In the WMC, you can find teams like Scuderia Rossini (with the German Dieter Wexler and the flying Finn Nilo Saarinen), Steinmann Motorsport (with the fantastic British driver Harry Chapman and his German team mate Wolfgang Schmidt). I haven't fully figured out the teams but I THINK these are the ones:

Steinmann Motorsport - Mercedes
Scuderia Rossini - Ferrari
Panther Race Team - Red Bull
Windsor Racing - Williams
Kitano Sport - McLaren
Vélan Racing - Sauber
Rezzato Corsa - Toro Rosso
Chariot Motor Group - Manor
MacNeil Racing Team - Haas
Thornton Motorsport - Renault

There's no Indian team in the World Motorsport Championship. Hmpf.

The Asia-Pacific and European Series are more fictional, with perhaps a few nods to some teams but nothing more than that. The series have different rules (The European racing series won't allow the development of front and rear wings and instead use spec wings. There's a reverse grid based on championship position so whoever leads the series starts last, etc.) and you can vote on a few changes every year.

In my first playthrough, I lead the fantastic Garuda Racing to victory in the European Racing Series and was offered promotion to the Acia-Pacific Super Cup which I accepted. Mid-season in the Acia-Pacific, I applied for the job of team principal at Scuderia Rossini. I was accepted and helped guide Rossini from 3rd to 1st in the championship. Mid-season, I replaced my two aging drivers for younglings, Charles LeCoq (yes. LeCoq) and Carol Olson. Great pairing.

I am now playing as Rehn Grand Prix (YES YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN TEAMS!). For the first season, we started off with an absolute shite car and I was 1 second behind the second slowest team on the grid. By season 2, I fought for wins. By season 3, I almost exclusively finish first and second.

Look at the lovely Swedish-inspired colour scheme of my car. Every year, you get to edit the livery.

[Chrill]

After winning season 3 of European Racing Series, for my 4th season I have indeed graduated to the Asia-Pacific Super Cup. I can only expect to score points occasionally since I should be behind the other teams in terms of development. Here's our car for the season though:



Notice among other things that there are different tyres. In the European Racing Series, we had wide tyres from Brutus (high grip, low durability). For the Asia-Pacific, we are using the more refined Cortés tyres which are narrower and offer less grip, but in turn last longer.

[Penfold]

Cheers for taking the time to review, sounds like a well worked game.

I assume Kitano Sport is blessed with an under-powered & unreliable engine....

[Chrill]

Cheers for taking the time to review, sounds like a well worked game.

I assume Kitano Sport is blessed with an under-powered & unreliable engine....

I would guess as much, yes.

Every start of the season, you pick your various suppliers such as Engine, Fuel, Brakes, etc.

Steinmann (Mercedes) will supply engines to Windsor (Williams) at a cheaper rate. Ferrari cannot pick Steinmann engines at all, they are not on offer. Other teams not specifically tied to a manufacturer will get to pick an engine every year. In the lower series, I do not have the same suppliers to choose from.

As you can see here, my car has a decent gearbox (Acceleration) and decent brakes (Decelation). The engine (Top speed) is neutral because there is a spec engine. Me choosing an expensive engine for this year was stupid since I cannot develop it anyway.



For the rest, I am lagging behind thanks in part to being new in the series. Despite having a car far below the average performance, Rehn GP is actually second in the manufacturer standings mid-season thanks to some cunning strategy (having spent a lot of money on my Forecasting Center so that I can see when the rain is coming before the others).