Formula 1 games are in a tricky state right now. F1 Manager is in its third year and struggling to find a big enough audience to justify its cost, while Codemasters is having touble making the current generation of cars fun to drive.
However, the overall architecture of both the games has also come under fire. Accurately recreating any sport is tough, but Formula 1 not only has incredibly dynamic action on the track but an enormous set of technical and sporting regulations to put into each game.
Frontier has finally bought one aspect of the rules to their game, adding something fans thought impossible. This success only sharpens the spotlight on Codemasters.
Pit Lane Starts
The pit lane start is a key piece of the F1 rulebook. Teams are only permitted very minimal changes to cars once qualifying starts, but sometimes big rebuilds and setup changes are required. The punishment for breaking these park ferme conditions is that the car is removed from the grid and must start the race in the pit lane, only being released once everyone has passed the pit exit.
It forces teams to make changes only when absolutely necessary, but still allows them to contest the Grand Prix.
This feature has been completely missing from F1 games for a long, long time. As it is usually a last resort following costly qualifying crashes or the lack of like-for-like spare parts, games have been able to get around it. Well F1 Manager 2024 has just added the pit lane start much to the delight of everyone.
Rather than forcing you to make costly emergency orders to your factory, you can just put an older part on the car and start from the pit lane.
Can Codemasters Do The Same?
As a managerial sim, F1 Manager has some different challenges to the active racing of Codemasters F1 series. They don't have to worry about car physics and handling for one, which undoubtedly frees up time to focus on the rules and regulations of the sport.
Codemasters has struggled to make the sport of F1 work over recent years. Red flags have only just been added back to the series after a decade-long absence and safety cars still have persistent problems. The odds of them adding pit lane starts any time soon are incredibly slim.
F1 Manager detractors have been stunned by Update 1.9, which added pit lane starts along with driver development and scouting features. It's already making people revisit F1 Manager 2024, while F1 24 continues to hemorrhage players.
The continued hard work from Frontier is only highlighting the shaky state of Codemasters' series, which has sold considerably worse than in previous years.
The EA-owned studio has so much work to get the series back on the right path that adding a huge feature like pit lane starts seems impossible.
Maybe they will be spurred into action by the strong reception of Frontier's addition. Maybe it is something that was already planned to be introduced in F1 25, but there is no doubt that right now Codemasters is in a tricky spot with its flagship series.