F1 Manager 2023 tips for beginners

A recommended read to keep you from going full Ferrari

It’s once again time to feel the adrenaline rush of the racing track – while looking at tables full of lap times and graphs showing tyre degradation. That’s right, F1 Manager 2023 is here and once more casts you in the role of team principal. It’s your responsibility to manage your F1 team on and off the track, making the key decisions allowing you to succeed and climb up the pecking order – or keep the spot on top of the food chain.

F1 Manager 2023, just like its predecessor, is definitely more on the casual side of the genre – those looking for great depth are better served sticking to Motorsport Manager. However, anyone playing a management game for the first time will want to familiarize themselves with the basics. That’s where our F1 Manager 2023 beginner tips come into play – get ready, rookie!

Research and development

Make sure to use all of your allocated testing time by designing and researching new parts. Always keep an eye on the cost cap, though / Frontier

Before you jump into the season opener, you should pay a visit to your team's development department and commission the first part designs – your precious testing time in the wind tunnel should not go to waste. You will get a fresh allotment of wind tunnel time after a certain period, so always make sure to use it up before it refreshes. Part research becomes available after a few races and allows you to start developing a strong car for next season. Be sure to always balance between the design of parts for immediate use and the development process for next year.

Optional sponsor goals

Qualifying targets are an easy source of additional income for the quicker teams / Frontier

Your sponsors will automatically assign you a number of goals, the fulfillment of which will earn you bonuses. For this purpose, you can accept optional goals before each race, which promise you further payouts, but incur penalties if you fail to fulfill them. It’s a great additional source of cash, so be sure to check which bonus targets you have available and accept those you think you can fulfill with ease.

Free Practice

Good Free Practice sessions will give your drivers more confidence for the weekend. As you can see, Alonso is more of a pessimist than Stroll and harder to satisfy / Frontier

In Free Practice, the drivers have to get used to the track and new car parts, as well as find a good set-up for their car. The better your practice sessions are in these respects, the higher your drivers’ confidence for qualifying and the race will be – and that’s important, because it helps them avoid accidents and makes them better at overtaking and defending. Although you can let the AI simulate Free Practice, you should play at least one of the three sessions manually.

Send your drivers out for 15 laps and wait for them to give you feedback over the radio. Then bring them in and, using the five sliders, adjust the individual set-up values so that they are within the displayed ranges. Of course, you should leave values that the driver feels are good untouched as far as possible, then send them out again and wait for the next round of feedback.

Confidence rises and falls with successful or failed overtakes and defenses. Here, Lance Stroll is leading the Bahrain Grand Prix and has peak confidence in his car and abilities / Frontier

Normally, you will reach a pretty good level for the set-up during the first session, which the AI can increase in the remaining simulated sessions. Naturally, no one is stopping you from doing all of them manually, but that can be a bit tedious.

Sprint weekends are a bit different in that they only have two Free Practice sessions, forcing you to be a bit more efficient.

Starts

The race start is one of the most critical moments, so give your drivers whatever they need to make it work / Frontier

You don’t want to be left behind right at the start, so adjust your drivers' settings to full aggression right before the race. You can do this on the same screen that asks you to create a strategy among other settings. Have them tackle the tires aggressively from the start, use the engine's push mode and employ the ERS deploy function. Ideally, this will put your drivers in a good position when DRS is unlocked a few laps into the race.

Strategy

F1 Manager 2023 is a bit weird when it comes to the tyres. In actual F1 we’re often seeing the harder compounds being used, as they degrade more slowly over the course of a race and allow teams to avoid pitting more often. However, the degradation of softer tyres in the game is much less impactful than in real life, often making them a much better option to go with – so if you’re looking for strategy ideas, then check out what the teams did in real life and copy it (mind the weather, of course) while replacing all tyres with compounds that are one level softer (Mediums for Hards and Softs for Mediums).

Fuel

Don't let the fuel gauge scare you: at the start of a race, you can easily push so hard that the gauge drops into negative territory. The more fuel you use at the start, the faster you'll be for the rest of the race because of the lower weight. Once DRS is active and you're chasing someone, you'll also save a tremendous amount of fuel. So insofar as your engine can take it, you can stay in push mode for a very long time. Ideally, you won't have a drop too much in the tank at the end of the race – you can even stop the car due to being out of fuel right after the start-finish line and won’t be punished, unlike in real life where that would disqualify a driver.

Safety Cars and weather

Make sure to warm up your tyres quickly after leaving the pits or before a restart / Frontier

Some races just don't go as planned: accidents cause phases with Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car and rain messes up any strategy. The game will tell you in such exceptional situations that this is a good opportunity for a pit stop – and it often is, because a pit stop under Safety Car can save you a lot of time. However, don't let this put you under pressure. Sometimes gaining track position is more important than fresh tyres. In these cases, you don't need to pit, no matter what the game says.

Rain is a good chance for backmarkers to make up places – if the rain starts and you're close to the pit lane entrance, it's worth the risk to go on intermediate tires right away. What do you have to lose?

Also, don't forget to switch the battery to harvest mode during a Safety Car and conserve fuel. Tyre temperatures are important in F1 Manager 2023, so work those settings to keep them from becoming too cold – you don’t want to be caught with cooled off rubber at the restart and lose places.

Keep a cool head

Keeping a cool head is incredibly important in fast-paced racing action, especially when a lot is happening. Don't be afraid to pause the race to study data or make a decision – real strategy teams would kill for this option. Don't panic and make rash decisions because of a changing situation. Take it easy.

Eyes on the target

In racing, striving for the next best position is like an addiction – you naturally always want to overtake the next car and the one after that as well. But this is a tempting trap. Always keep in mind your goal and your limits: Yes, it's cool to be able to fight the Ferraris and Red Bulls at the front. It's definitely a huge advantage to stay in their DRS window.

But is it advisable to wear out your tyres in an ultimately hopeless battle when the Mercedes cars lurking behind you are the real opponents? Nope. Your rivals aren't necessarily the cars directly in front of or behind you – so forgo the odd overtaking move and conserve your resources to secure your points gains. Glory will come in time.

Pit Stops

Drilling your pit crew will give you faster stops, but don't overwork them / Frontier

You can train your pit crews in F1 Manager 2023 to ensure that your pit stops become quicker – the game even features a championship battle among teams in this discipline. Faster pit stops will help you out a lot during the races, but make sure to avoid overworking your mechanics, as higher fatigue levels might result in costly mistakes being made. You can adjust the training schedule freely or just choose to focus on a specific area and let the AI handle the rest.

Make sure to check out the best drivers, staff members, and teams to start with in F1 Manager 2023 as well to make the most of your time with the game.