Update 1.9 - New Features Coming Soon!

Welcome back to Frontier HQ Team Principals!

Whilst you’ve been delivering pole positions and World Championships, we’ve been hard at work in the factory since launch, and we’re now excited to lift the covers off Update 1.9, the next major update for F1® Manager 2024. We’re adding some highly requested new features to the game, so let’s get straight into the details!

Pit Lane Starts

Pitlane starts are now fully supported in F1® Manager 24! Using the real-world regulations as a base, these bring an additional level of authenticity to the game. Parc fermé rules take effect from whenever your car first goes on track during Q1 or SQ1; a strict list of rules is then applied:

• Front wing angle can be changed.

• Like-for-like parts can be swapped (For example, a broken wing can be replaced with another wing of the same design.)

• Swapping non-like-for-like parts incurs a pitlane start.

• Component changes will result in a pitlane start (i.e. engines, gearboxes etc).

• All other setup changes will incur a pitlane start.

• Cars starting from the pitlane may not exit the pitlane until they receive the greenlight, which is only given when the starting grid has fully passed the exit of the pitlane.

We're excited to see how you navigate these new limitations, but don't worry about keeping your F1 rulebook to hand, you'll be fully prompted before making a change which will incur a penalty! Can you turn a bad qualifying or mechanical fault into a tactical advantage later in the season?

We've also gone back over the Starting Grid scenarios from this season and ensured any cars which started from the pitlane in the real races now also start from the pitlane in the game to ensure you're able to challenge yourself as you seek to replay the races from the official 2024 season so far, can you make points from the pitlane?

Driver Development Focus

You can now focus drivers into distinct areas of development in order to use their skills to benefit your team. This includes your affiliates, giving you an extra reason to seek out the right people to fill your affiliate slots with the skills to enhance your team how you see fit. There are three ways you can choose to deploy the drivers in your stable....

Driver Development: Drivers continue to focus on themselves and increasing their own abilities.

Car Development: Drivers use their skills to boost the research & design of car parts, reducing the time it takes to complete that research. They also contribute to increasing preparedness heading into races, giving a setup boost. As you'd expect, the amount your driver can assist is based on their expertise; more experienced drivers will have a larger effect than drivers new to the series. The effects of this focus stack, meaning you can deploy up to three of your drivers to give a bigger boost! However, bear in mind that drivers focusing on car development will temporarily sacrifice their development rates to do so.

Marketability: Use your drivers’ marketability to help you meet your sponsorship goals more easily. Do you choose to send your young hotshots out or use your more seasoned drivers to make a bigger impact? Meeting your sponsorship goals more easily means less distraction to the wider team at the cost of reducing that driver's focus. Drivers focusing on marketability gain an increase in their own marketability temporarily while focusing on this area while dropping their own