F1 Manager 2023 – Design and Research Mechanics

(V1.3) Explanation of mechanics behind car design and research.

Intro and Major Changes from F1M22

Сrеdit gоеs to Mike Takumi !

Welcome to the 2023 version of the F1 Manager car guide. If you’re familiar with the F1M22 guide and mechanics, much of the underlying systems still generally work the same way. However, there are some major major changes to be aware of if you just want a quick hit list of things that don’t work the same way. You may want to read the more detailed sections to understand the full scope of what these changes mean, but if you just want to know the basics and work it out from there, here you go.

• You start with all 4 design/research slots open right from the start, upgrading Design Center will not unlock more. You get more engineers and extra facilities bonuses to parts though
• Costs have been adjusted upwards significantly
• Times for doing design and research have been adjusted, everything sits around 40 days before engineer counts and rapid design
• Parts now have durability, and you will be constantly making parts
• Slider positions now make ZERO difference towards expertise gain when used in Design, all stats will gain at the daily rate regardless of position while working (Intense is still 1.5x the daily gain for everything)
• Moving the sliders now has no impact on the time a part takes or cost, right or left
• The additive bonus as I called it from slider positions in design is now MUCH more powerful in both adding stats and subtracting them, moreso even than the initial numbers were last year at launch
• Stats now are interconnected more and balanced between the parts. So a godly floor and bad other parts may have less performance than an ok floor and ok supporting parts
• Not directly design related, but tire heating and engine durability are significantly more impactful
• DRS Top Speed/Accel were merged into a “DRS Delta %”
• The Dirty Air Cornering values were merged into “Dirty Air Tolerance %”
• Nearly all the detailed information that comprised what goes into a parts stat has been collapsed and obfuscated into a single “Expertise and Facilities” line, note this includes staff bonuses

If you wish to just get the cliff notes of what’s important in each chapter, you can skip to the chapter notes.

Chapter 1: Parts and Stat Basics

This will be a quick rundown of the overall car performance values and what they do/mean, the parts of the car and what stats each uses, and what each of those stats effects.

• Top Speed: Max speed your car can achieve. As last year, the max range on this is only about 10 kph from slowest possible to fastest possible. Can be very important for getting passes done on straights
• Acceleration: How quickly you can get to that max speed. This has very small margins and can generally be ignored.
• DRS Effectiveness: Determines the increase in speed and acceleration you can get when deploying DRS as a multiplier to your top speed and acceleration (high %, higher multiplier). This isn’t vital to success, but you shouldn’t let it fall too far behind the field either as even the fastest cars need this for good Qualifying
• Low/Medium/High Speed Cornering: Each track has a map that identifies the corners and which category they fall into, the better your stats in the relevant field, the faster you are able to get through the corner and the more speed you can carry out of it. These stats are king of the pile and you should note which ones are marked as Recommended or Crucial for each race so you bring the right parts and upgrades
• Dirty Air Tolerance: A multiplier that applies to the relevant cornering stat when you are following another car through a corner (within .5 seconds, closer has more effect on your possible speed). The better this is, the less speed you will lose. This can be ignored or important depending how much you find yourself racing other cars
• Brake Cooling: While this says Brake Cooling, and it obviously keeps the brakes cool, what you want this for is to keep your tire temps under control. Depending on your typical race strategy, this can be incredibly useful for being able to push tires more without overheating them, or using softer compounds without having to micromanage their temps as much.
• Engine Cooling: This controls the durability loss of your powertrain components (Engine, ERS, Gearbox). The better this is, the slower they will degrade, and the more races you can do with them without needing to purchase extras. Putting attention into this is a tradeoff between not taking penalties/avoiding spending cost cap on expensive parts and being able to put more attention into items that directly increase your race pace
• Total Extra Weight: Each of your parts will add weight to the car depending how you tweak their durability, less weight means a faster, more nimble car and will improve stats across the board.

Parts

• Chassis: The skeleton of the car that all the other parts bolt onto. Controls cooling and stat modifiers
• Front Wing: The wall seeking device on the front. Controls slower speed cornering ability and cooling
• Rear Wing: The big boy on the back. Controls your speed/acceleration as well as DRS and dirty air
• Sidepods: The big intakes along the sides (except Mercedes). Controls cooling and stat modifiers
• Underfloor: The underside of the car and lynchpin of the current F1 design. Controls cornering and speed and is the most important piece to keep competitive
• Suspension: The big arms holding the tires on. Controls cooling and stat modifiers

Part Stats

What each stat effects in terms of the Car Performance table

Velocity

• Drag Reduction: Increases Max Speed and Acceleration
• DRS Delta: Increases DRS Effectiveness

Downforce

• Low Speed: Increases Low Speed Cornering
• Medium Speed: Increases Medium Speed Cornering
• High Speed: Increases High Speed Cornering

Airflow

• Airflow Sensitivity: Increases Dirty Air Tolerance
• Airflow Front: Acts as a multiplier to overall Low and Medium Speed Cornering*
• Airflow Middle: Acts as a multiplier to overall Medium and High Speed Cornering*

Cooling

• Brake Cooling: Improves Brake Cooling
• Engine Cooling: Improves Engine Cooling

Durability

• Minimum Lifespan: Effects Total Extra Weight and part longevity**

*These stats are interesting as they do not actually effect anything on their own. The higher these %s are, the more the other parts with downforce stats will have an effect on cornering performance. If you have very high downforce, but your airflow is poor, then those big numbers are multiplied by a small number, and vice versa if you have high airflow and low downforce.

For a great example from a fresh career file, the Williams has parts with High Speed Downforce that rivals Red Bull, but their car performance in that area is well below the Red Bulls. This is because their Airflow stats on the relevant parts are well below what Red Bull is capable of. So you can pump your underfloor downforce up to the maximum, but if you do not improve the sidepods, chassis, and suspension, you will never realize those improvements fully.

**Part durability is a new feature to parts in F1M23. Parts now have a minimum and maximum distance they can go. How this works in practice is that when you equip a part to a car, you can run the minimum distance listed through practice, qual, sprints, races without any risk or penalty. There is no loss of pace as a part degrades, a part at 1% will be just as fast as that same part at 100%. Once a part hits the minimum distance, there becomes a chance that FIA scrutineering deems the part out of spec and confiscates the part. As you go beyond the minimum distance, the chance increases, until you hit maximum and will need to replace the part. This will not harm you or fail midrace, nor will having a part taken result in additional penalty besides having to put a new part from your stockpile on “early”.

Time and Costs

The below is how long each part takes to design or research and the base cost to do so. Note time can be elongated due to Sponsor obligations.

Research only has one mode to operate in. Design work can be done in 3 modes:

• Normal: Default cost and time.
• Rushed: Completes 50% faster (30 days down to 20) and 50% more cost (1 mil to 1.5 mil).
• Intense: Default time, 200% more cost (1 mil to 3 mil), will provide bonus expertise (later section).

You can also assign 1-6 engineers to a task in order to complete it faster for both design and research, each additional engineer will increase the rate of completion by 10% (1 engineer=10% faster, 5=50%)

Chapter 1 Notes

• Your most important and impactful parts to pure pace are, in order: Underfloor, Front Wing, Rear Wing.
• Sidepods, Suspension, and Chassis are not vital, but should not be ignored as they act as multipliers to the other parts.
• The most important part/car stats for pure pace are the Downforce/Cornering ones of Low, Medium, and High speed.
• Airflow Front and Middle are multipliers to the above and should not fall too far behind the field as you need high Front for Low/Medium corners and high Middle for Medium/High corners.
• Speed stats are important for difficult to pass tracks so you can get alongside before entering a corner and using your corner stats to get past and pull away.
• Cooling will help you manage your tires and engine parts, which can allow for more flexibility in strategy choice.
• Costs are very high this year and time to develop is lower, WATCH YOUR COST CAP, it is very easy to overspend if you do not plan.