F1 Manager 2024 is Frontier Developments' third official Formula 1 management game, released on 23 July 2024 with the full 2024 grid of ten teams and a 24 round calendar. The headline addition is Create A Team, the first time the series lets you build an eleventh outfit from scratch with your own livery, logo, race suits, staff and sponsor deals. Mechanical Failures also arrived, so pushing a car hard for a whole stint now carries a real chance of losing it, and temperature management moved from a background number to something you watch. Underneath that sit the systems the series is actually built on: twelve car performance attributes fed by six part types, ten driver attributes, a five slider setup you dial in during practice, and a mentality system where unhappy staff design worse parts. Steam reviews are Very Positive at around 81 percent and Metacritic lands on 81, which is roughly where the game deserves to be: strong race day, occasionally shallow between weekends.
This guide covers everything you need: core mechanics, the best builds, equipment worth investing in, location progression, and the tips that actually make a difference.
Core Mechanics
Create A Team
New for 2024, this puts an eleventh team on the grid with your own name, livery, logo and race suits, then makes you fill it. You hire every staff role, sign two drivers, negotiate sponsor placements on the car and start from a facility base far behind the established constructors. It is the hardest way to play because you begin with no car development history and no reputation to attract talent, which is exactly why experienced players go straight to it.
Mechanical Failures
Components now accumulate stress during a race weekend and can fail outright, ending a race that your strategy had won. Some of it is avoidable through temperature control, watching brake and engine temperatures and easing off before a component crosses into the danger band, and some of it is the price of running an old part past its Minimum Lifespan. The practical effect is that the aggressive pace settings that used to be free now cost you something.
Car part design and research
Six part types each drive specific slices of the car's twelve attributes. Underfloor governs low, medium and high speed downforce together; Front Wing covers low speed downforce and Airflow Front; Rear Wing handles drag reduction, DRS Delta and medium speed downforce; Chassis covers drag reduction and Airflow Middle; Sidepods handle engine cooling and Airflow Middle; Suspension gives drag reduction and tyre preservation. Airflow Front multiplies low and medium speed cornering while Airflow Middle multiplies medium and high speed, which is why the airflow numbers matter more than their raw values suggest.
Practice programmes and the five slider setup
Every session you run practice programmes to fill your setup knowledge, then adjust five sliders: Front Wing Angle, Rear Wing Angle, Anti-Roll Bar distribution, Tyre Camber and Toe-Out. Driver feedback maps cleanly onto them: oversteer complaints point at Front Wing, braking issues at Rear Wing, cornering at the Anti-Roll Bar, traction at Tyre Camber and straight line pace at Toe-Out. Reaching a 100 percent setup before qualifying is worth more lap time than most part upgrades.
Mentality and team morale
Drivers and staff carry mentality states that shift with results, contract talks, team orders and how you treat their team mate. A happy technical department produces better parts and hits design targets more often, while a driver whose mentality has collapsed loses pace and starts making mistakes in traffic. Team orders that hand a place to the other car are the fastest way to wreck a mentality you spent a season building.
For a deeper dive into how these systems interact, see our F1 Manager 2024 combat guide.
Builds Overview
| Build | Tier | Playstyle | Key Stats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Bull Racing | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Ferrari | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| McLaren | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Mercedes | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Williams | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
For full build breakdowns with gear and stat priorities, see our F1 Manager 2024 builds guide. For rankings, check the tier list.
Equipment Guide
| Equipment | Why It Matters | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Front Wing | Drives low speed downforce and Airflow Front, and Airflow Front acts as a multiplier on low and medium speed cornering rather than adding pace by itself. | Street circuits and slow corner tracks like Monaco, Singapore and the Hungaroring. |
| Rear Wing | Handles drag reduction, DRS Delta and medium speed downforce. | Low downforce circuits and any save where your drivers keep sitting behind slower cars without passing. |
| Underfloor | The only part that contributes to low, medium and high speed downforce at once, which makes it the highest value single development target in the game. | Any team early in a rebuild, since it improves the widest range of circuits per design slot spent. |
| Sidepods | Provide engine cooling and Airflow Middle. | Hot races such as Bahrain and Qatar, and any team suffering repeated component failures. |
| Suspension | Covers drag reduction and tyre preservation. | High degradation circuits and strategies built around stopping one fewer time than the field. |
Front Wing: Drives low speed downforce and Airflow Front, and Airflow Front acts as a multiplier on low and medium speed cornering rather than adding pace by itself. That makes the front wing the part that turns a car with good raw downforce into one that actually rotates through slow corners.
Rear Wing: Handles drag reduction, DRS Delta and medium speed downforce. DRS Delta specifically controls how much time you gain when the flap opens, so a strong rear wing is what turns a car that follows closely into one that actually completes the overtake.
Underfloor: The only part that contributes to low, medium and high speed downforce at once, which makes it the highest value single development target in the game. A strong underfloor lifts the car everywhere rather than at one type of corner.
Sidepods: Provide engine cooling and Airflow Middle. Cooling matters far more in 2024 than in previous entries because Mechanical Failures punish sustained high temperatures, and Airflow Middle multiplies medium and high speed cornering.
Suspension: Covers drag reduction and tyre preservation. Tyre preservation is the quietest performance stat in the game because it does not show on a single lap, but it decides whether you can run a one stop strategy where rivals need two.
Full breakdowns in our F1 Manager 2024 weapons guide.
Location Progression
| Location | Level Range | Key Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Bahrain International Circuit | Round 1 of 24 | Early season form check, high degradation strategy practice, cooling stress test |
| Circuit de Monaco | Round 8 of 24 | Qualifying focused weekend, safety car gambles, low speed downforce payoff |
| Silverstone Circuit | Round 12 of 24 | High speed downforce payoff, weather gamble opportunities, driver adaptability test |
| Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps | Round 14 of 24 | Split sector setup decisions, mixed weather strategy, DRS Delta value on the Kemmel straight |
| Autodromo Nazionale Monza | Round 16 of 24 | Low drag setup practice, slipstream qualifying, brake temperature management |
Bahrain International Circuit: Round 1 of the 2024 calendar and a heavy braking, rear limited circuit run at night on an abrasive surface. Track temperatures and tyre degradation are both high, which makes it the first real test of your suspension and cooling development.
Circuit de Monaco: Round 8, the slowest and narrowest circuit on the calendar, where qualifying position decides the race because overtaking barely exists. Maximum downforce and a front wing biased setup matter far more than engine power.
Silverstone Circuit: Round 12 and a high speed flowing circuit where Copse, Maggotts and Becketts reward high speed downforce and Airflow Middle. British weather in the game engine also makes it one of the most likely races to turn wet mid session.
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps: Round 14 and the longest lap of the year, mixing a long uphill run through Eau Rouge and Raidillon with a technical final sector. It punishes a wing setup chosen for one sector and rewards a compromise, and rain in one part of the circuit while another stays dry is a regular event.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza: Round 16 and the lowest downforce weekend of the season, where drag reduction and DRS Delta outweigh cornering grip. Slipstream effects are strong enough that qualifying order can be decided by who follows whom, and brake temperatures spike into the first chicane.
See our maps & locations guide for detailed area breakdowns and our walkthrough for the optimal progression path.
Tips That Actually Matter
- Reaching 100 percent setup knowledge before qualifying is usually worth more lap time than a single part upgrade, so spend practice running the programmes that fill your knowledge rather than chasing headline lap times.
- Driver setup feedback maps directly onto sliders: oversteer means Front Wing, braking complaints mean Rear Wing, cornering means Anti-Roll Bar distribution, traction means Tyre Camber and straight line pace means Toe-Out.
- Underfloor is the only part that raises low, medium and high speed downforce at the same time, which makes it the best single development target when your budget only covers one programme.
- Airflow Front multiplies low and medium speed cornering while Airflow Middle multiplies medium and high speed, so a car with high raw downforce and poor airflow numbers will still feel slow through corners.
- Mechanical Failures build from sustained stress, so watching brake and engine temperatures during a stint and backing off a notch before a component enters the danger band saves races.
- Every part has a Minimum Lifespan value, and running a component well past it in the name of saving money is how you lose a points finish on the last lap.
- ERS has four modes and Neutral is the one you should be in most of the race, because it keeps the battery stable; Harvest charges deliberately while stuck behind a car, and Deploy and Overtake spend that charge on a specific move.
- A drained ERS battery costs roughly double the time to recharge that you gained by spending it, so continuous deployment across a stint is a net loss.
- Driver mentality moves on results, contract talks and team orders, and a technical department with poor morale misses design targets, so happiness is a performance stat rather than flavour.
- In Create A Team, sign staff on long contracts during your first season while your reputation is low, because their salary demands climb once your team starts scoring.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Skipping practice programmes to save time, then qualifying on a setup that is only 60 percent complete and losing several tenths every lap.
- Reacting to an oversteer complaint by changing Anti-Roll Bar distribution instead of Front Wing Angle, which pushes the setup further away from the target.
- Running an aggressive pace setting for a full stint in 2024, where Mechanical Failures now turn sustained stress into a retirement.
- Spreading design slots across all six part types instead of finishing an Underfloor programme, so no single area of the car improves enough to matter.
- Issuing team orders to swap drivers for a single position, which damages the mentality of the driver who gave up the place for the rest of the season.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is new in F1 Manager 2024 compared with 2023?
Create A Team is the headline, letting you add an eleventh outfit with your own livery, logo, race suits, staff and sponsors. Mechanical Failures are the other major addition, so component stress can now end a race. Race Replay returns with scenarios from the real 2024 season, and driver development through F2 and F3 affiliates was expanded.
Which car part should I develop first?
The Underfloor. It is the only part that feeds low, medium and high speed downforce together, so it lifts performance at every type of circuit rather than at one. Front Wing comes next if your car struggles in slow corners, and Rear Wing if your drivers follow closely but cannot pass.
How do I read setup feedback during practice?
Each complaint maps to one slider. Oversteer points at Front Wing Angle, braking problems at Rear Wing Angle, cornering at Anti-Roll Bar distribution, traction at Tyre Camber and straight line pace at Toe-Out. Work through them one at a time until the session reports 100 percent.
How do I avoid Mechanical Failures?
Watch component temperatures during the race and reduce pace before anything crosses into the danger band, and retire parts that have passed their Minimum Lifespan rather than squeezing another weekend out of them. Sidepod development raising engine cooling also reduces the risk directly.
Is Create A Team hard for a first save?
Yes. You start with the weakest facilities, no development history and no reputation, which makes staff and driver negotiations difficult. A first save with an established midfield team like McLaren teaches the design and race systems with a car that can already score points.
More F1 Manager 2024 Guides
- F1 Manager 2024 Best Builds
- F1 Manager 2024 Tier List
- F1 Manager 2024 Walkthrough
- F1 Manager 2024 Beginner's Guide
- F1 Manager 2024 Tips & Tricks
- F1 Manager 2024 Weapons Guide
- F1 Manager 2024 Combat Guide
- F1 Manager 2024 Boss Guide
- F1 Manager 2024 Maps & Locations
- F1 Manager 2024 Crafting Guide
- F1 Manager 2024 Classes & Characters
Similar Games
If you enjoy F1 Manager 2024, check out these related guides:
- Stardew Valley Guide: simulation game with similar mechanics
- Satisfactory Guide: simulation game with similar mechanics
- The Sims 4 Guide: simulation game with similar mechanics
