F1 Manager 2024: 10 Create A Team tips to help you win the championship

F1 Manager 2024 is the next installment in Frontier Developments’ motorsport management sim series. Previous titles allowed you to choose from some of the top organizations in Formula One and guide them to the top of the Constructors' Championship. This year’s offering still lets you do that—but there’s a new and highly requested feature: the ability to lead your own custom team.

Our F1 Manager 2024 Create A Team guide will help you get started on your journey from relative newcomer to championship contender. Keep reading for tips on signing drivers and affiliates, determining sponsorship packages, preparing for each grand prix, and understanding the Mentality system.

 

Starting your own organization

When you first choose Create A Team Mode in F1 Manager 2024, you’ll be able to select your Team Profile, which affects your starting cash balance, team rating, and powertrain manufacturer. Presets include being an “Industry Giant” with hefty resources or a “Hungry Newcomer” just eager to prove yourself. Alternatively, selecting the “Your Story” option gives you more freedom to adjust funding and other options.

As for your team members in Create A Team mode, you'll handpick the following:

• The two main drivers
• The two race engineers (assigned to each driver)
• A technical chief, head of aerodynamics, and sporting director

It’s worth noting that you can pick from real-world drivers and staff, in addition to randomly generated characters. It's a good idea to look at each individual’s rating/attributes and their salary per annum. At a glance, it might be tempting to recruit Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc, who have overall ratings of 92 and 89, respectively. However, you might see generated drivers with similar stats—and with the added benefit of cheaper contracts. This also adds another level of immersion, as though you’re really starting from scratch.

 

Design and save your liveries and driver suits

Before you advance to your first race weekend, you’ll be able to design your car livery and driver suit, including patterns, color schemes, and different finishes (like metallic, matte, or gloss). Feel free to come up with your own psychedelic combinations or represent your country with your flag’s colors.

Later in the season, you can find and customize these options in the Cars - Team Branding menu. You can also save your designs for later use, such as when creating a different team.

 

Sign up for the right sponsor packages

An important F1 Manager 2024 Create A Team tip to keep in mind is that sponsorship earnings aren’t fixed for the duration of a season. There are multiple facets to consider when picking a sponsor:

• Upfront Funding: Cash added to your balance as soon as you pick a sponsor.
• Engagement Funding: Payments that come from sponsor plans.
• Race Day Funding: Payments obtained based on how well your team performs each race weekend.

Sponsor plans, which contribute Engagement Funding, last for six weeks and you may determine which activities to add to your schedule. (Note that these activities happen in the background and there are no related cutscenes or player actions.)

Ideally, you should exceed a sponsor’s target goal to keep them happy and the cash flowing. However, be forewarned that there might be adverse effects on your drivers, staff, or facilities.

 

Set up your car and race strategy

Each race weekend has a particular format that includes practice, qualifying, sprint (if applicable), and the grand prix itself. During this time, you can tweak the setup for each car, like adjusting front and rear wing angles and anti-roll distribution. As your drivers complete their practice runs, they get used to the adjustments you've made and gain more confidence in the car’s setup, which improves overall consistency in the race.

Race strategy is another important factor if you want to achieve podiums. You'll need to determine which tire compounds to use and which laps drivers ought to enter pit stops.

 

Take manual control during races

As a management sim, F1 Manager 2024 doesn’t let you drive the cars themselves. Instead, you mostly watch the action unfold on the circuit by way of broadcast-quality camera views and a helicam view. While it’s possible to simulate entire races, taking control manually allows you to decide on a variety of important actions that drivers will undertake on the fly:

• Pace: Set driver aggression on the track.
• Fuel and Energy Recovery System (ERS): Conserve or push as much as possible.
• Tactics: Driver overtake aggression and how often they defend their spot. You may also toggle certain options, like preventing a driver from fighting their teammate for a position.

Mechanical failures can also occur during races when you least expect them. As such, you need to be mindful of overexerting vehicles for prolonged periods.

 

Plan ahead when it comes to parts improvements and research

In the Car Parts Development menu, you’ll find everything you need when it comes to research and development, both in the near and distant future:

• Research: Improve car parts for next season and prepare for any regulation changes.
• Design: Create new car parts for the current season.
• Manufacture: Build car parts that you’ve successfully designed.

You may select presets or manually adjust the slider to affect performance factors, such as cornering speed, DRS effectiveness, tire preservation, engine cooling, and extra weight. From there, you can assign the number of engineers and change the R&D approach to speed up the process at additional costs. We recommend rushing a few upgrades early in the season so you gain an edge in upcoming competitions.

 

Don’t forget to upgrade your facilities

Your organization’s facilities are organized into three major branches:

• Car Development: Consists of the Factory (which increases project capacity and development speed), the Wind Tunnel, Design Center, and other departments.
• Staff: Contains improvements for your team’s Mentality, weekly development, and scouting capacity.
• Operations: Contains boosts for your team’s marketability, team attractiveness, sponsor payouts, and weekly income.

Take note of how Mentality affects morale

One important F1 Manager 2024 tip is to understand and master how Mentality affects the morale of your drivers and staff. Various factors come into play—for instance, one driver might feel happy if their car has an edge over their teammate’s, while the other driver may feel dissatisfied that they’re not being prioritized.

There’s a possibility that someone’s Mentality will affect their performance over time, and influence how they deal with you during contract negotiations.

 

Offer lucrative contracts to drivers and affiliates

Drivers and staff continuously improve as they gain experience, though age will still negatively impact their skills in the long run—not to mention the possibility of other teams poaching them as their contracts expire. You’ll need to prepare for future eventualities by finding a new crop of talent. This is done via the Scouting menu, which allows you to find individuals that will eventually become key members of your organization.

You should also check if a driver is at least 18 years old and has competed in at least two seasons of Formula 2 or Formula 3, as these are requirements if you’re to have them race in the pinnacle of motorsport. If not, you can recruit them as affiliates instead—they’ll continue to train and improve as part of your team, and they might land an opportunity in F2 or F3 soon enough.

 

Consistency is key

F1 Manager 2024 is a marathon, not a sprint. Every long and grueling season will give way to yet another. Consistency is key if you wish to see continued year-to-year improvements. Keep your drivers happy, earn more funding from sponsors, obtain new upgrades for your car parts, ascertain which timely actions are needed in a race, and adapt depending on the circumstances that arise.

Lastly, remember to be patient. You’re going to face the top competitors in the world of motorsport, and you’re bound to experience a challenge like no other. From the winding streets of Monaco to the bright lights of Las Vegas, your capabilities will be tested—but we hope our F1 Manager 2024 Create A Team tips help lead you to many podiums, and eventually to the top of the Constructors' Championship.

F1 Manager 2024 is available now on the Epic Games Store.