F1 Manager 2024: The Complete Team Principal Guide

By Nham Vu · Updated July 2026

F1 Manager 2024 is a racing management sim from Frontier Developments that puts you in charge of building and running a full Formula 1 team rather than driving one of the cars yourself. You pick from one of the ten official constructors on the current grid or start your own outfit from scratch, then handle everything from car development to pit wall calls over a full season. It's the closest thing on the market to actually sitting in the team principal's chair during a grand prix weekend.

What sets the series apart from older sims like the Motorsport Manager games is how closely it mirrors the real broadcast experience. You watch races rendered in the actual F1 game engine, tweak strategy live as tire wear and safety cars change the picture, and manage a full roster of engineers, drivers and facility upgrades in the background. New players tend to underestimate how much the strategic layer matters until a bad tire call costs them a podium in lap 40.

What is F1 Manager and who makes it?

F1 Manager is a racing management simulation series built around running a Formula 1 constructor rather than driving the cars. Frontier Developments holds the license and has released annual entries covering the current F1 season, starting with F1 Manager 2022 and continuing through F1 Manager 2024.

Each yearly release updates the driver lineup, calendar and car performance data to match the real world championship, while carrying over the core management loop of research and development, staff hiring, sponsorship deals and race weekend strategy. If you played the earlier entries, the interface and menu structure will feel familiar within a few minutes.

Where can you play F1 Manager 2024?

F1 Manager 2024 is available on PC through Steam, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, and through Xbox Cloud Gaming for players who don't own a console. It plays best on PC or current-gen consoles because the strategy screens and car telemetry graphs get cramped on smaller displays.

Cross-platform saves aren't a feature here, so pick the platform you'll stick with for the season before you sink hours into a career. Xbox Cloud Gaming is a decent option if you want to try it before committing to a purchase on a specific console.

Can you play F1 25 as a manager instead?

F1 25, the mainline racing title from Codemasters and EA, does not include a full team management mode comparable to F1 Manager. It focuses on driving, career mode as a driver, and My Team, which lets you manage some business decisions but keeps you behind the wheel for every race.

If pure management without driving is what you want, F1 Manager 2024 remains the dedicated option. The two series serve different audiences and there's been no confirmed crossover feature bringing full team management into the mainline F1 driving game.

Is F1 Manager 25 canceled?

There has been no official F1 Manager 2025 entry released or confirmed by Frontier Developments following F1 Manager 2024, and reporting from Wikipedia describes the series as discontinued. Players searching for news on a new yearly release have largely come up empty, which is why so many are still asking about it.

Until Frontier or another studio announces a successor, F1 Manager 2024 stands as the most current entry and the one still receiving community attention on forums like Reddit.

How do you manage car development and research effectively?

Car development in F1 Manager runs on a research points system where your engineering staff generate progress toward chassis, aerodynamics and powertrain upgrades over time. The best players I've seen treat research like a budget line rather than an afterthought, assigning staff deliberately instead of leaving default allocations in place all season.

Early in a campaign, prioritize whichever car component is holding your lap times back the most rather than chasing a balanced spread. In practice, a lopsided car that's fast in a straight line but weak in high-speed corners will bleed time at almost every track, so closing that gap first pays off more than small gains everywhere.

• Scout and hire higher-rated engineers before pouring money into facility upgrades
• Focus research on the component causing the biggest performance gap versus rivals
• Reinvest sponsorship income into R&D facilities rather than banking cash
• Watch reliability stats alongside pace, since a fast car that breaks down scores nothing

What race strategy mistakes trip up new players?

Race strategy in F1 Manager hinges on tire compound choice, pit window timing and reacting to safety cars, and it's the area where inexperienced managers lose the most points. What trips up new players most often is locking in a two-stop plan before the race and refusing to adapt when a virtual safety car or a rival's undercut changes the math.

Watch your tire wear graph and ERS deployment settings throughout the race instead of only checking in at pit stops. A driver running the wrong ERS mode on an out lap can lose several tenths that compound over a full stint, and that's the kind of detail separating a podium finish from finishing sixth.

How do car setups affect performance across tracks?

Car setups in F1 Manager adjust wing angles, suspension, gearing and brake balance to suit a specific circuit's demands, and getting them wrong costs measurable lap time even with a strong car. Low-downforce tracks like Monza reward a setup leaning toward straight-line speed, while a street circuit like Monaco wants maximum downforce and mechanical grip through slow corners.

Your race engineers will suggest a baseline setup for each weekend, and it's usually a reasonable starting point rather than something to override completely. Small manual tweaks based on your driver's feedback after practice sessions tend to matter more than reinventing the setup from zero each round.