In F1 Manager 2024, car setups play just as important of a role as in previous games. Here is our guide on how to get 100% setup satisfaction every time, with a few easy steps.
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This year’s F1 Manager game is shaping up really nicely. There have been a good number of improvements along with new features such as creating your own team.
Car setups have returned, and they play a crucial role in your performance during qualifying and a race. Nailing your car setup can be tedious, and sometimes headscratching, but doing so will give your drivers the best chance at a good race finish.
In this guide, I’m going to quickly run through how car setups work in F1 Manager 2024. I’ll then show you my foolproof method of achieving 100% setup satisfaction, or close to it, every single time.
Car setups in F1 Manager 2024 work in pretty much the same way that they did in last years game. During practice sessions, you can adjust your car setup for both drivers using five different options. These options on the left of the screen will in turn move the bars in the driver setup satisfaction screen.
The goal really is to achieve 100% driver setup satisfaction, or as close as you can get. This will increase your driver preparation score, and give your driver a performance boost in the qualifying and race sessions that follow.
Unlike traditional sim racing games such as F1 24, you don’t necessarily need to change the setup specifically for the track. Racing at Monza for example doesn’t require you to lower the front and rear wings. Instead, this is a mini-game where you will have to move the five bars to try and achieve optimal driver feedback.
In this year’s F1 Manager 2024 game, the five parts of the car setup that can be adjusted are;
Each part of the car setup does affect the bars in the center of the screen in different ways. For example, adjusting the rear wing has the largest impact on your car setup, whereas the toe-out is a great way to fine-tune the braking stability and cornering.
Below is an overview of how each part of the car setup affects the setup balance within the driver setup satisfaction screen.
| Setup | Oversteer | Braking Stability | Cornering | Traction | Straights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front Wing Angle | + | – | + | – | – |
| Rear Wing Angle | – | + | + | + | – |
| Anti-Roll Distribution | – | + | – | + | |
| Tyre Camber | + | – | + | – | |
| Toe-Out | + | – | |||
As mentioned, the goal with car setups is to get the driver setup satisfaction as close to 100% as possible for the biggest performance boost. Moving the car setup values on the left of the screen adjusts the graph in the centre.
There are a few parts to this graph that need to be understood. The large blue bars indicate the sweet spot for the car setup. The perfect location for each part of the car setup is located within these blue bars. As you perform more and more runs, these blue bars will start to shrink.
This will make it harder to fine-tune the car setup and keep the line within the blue bars, and will require you to tweak various parts of the car setup to do so.
The feedback from the driver is to the right of each part of the car setup. The feedback indicates how far or close you are to the sweet spot. This feedback ranges from bad to optimal. Bad indicates that the grey line is pretty far from the perfect spot, while good is closer, great is very close and optimal indicates the sweet spot.
Now, I want to show you our recommended method of achieving 100% car setup satisfaction every time or as close as we can get.
The first step is to head into the car setup screen and ensure all five bars in the centre of the screen are within the larger blue bars. The best option is to set them to be roughly in the center of these bars. Don’t spend too long on this before sending our drivers out.
When you get around to sending your drivers out, you should set them up with a long first stint. This is one of my top tips for F1 Manager 2024. The longer the practice stints, the faster the track acclimatisation will increase, which is another critical factor in improving the driver preparation score.
I normally opt for at least 20-25 lap stints on hard tyres, but you can go longer if you want a bigger boost to track acclimatisation. In the driving options, I normally lower the pace mode and fuel usage. This makes the driver drive slightly more efficiently, putting less wear through the car components.
When the driver is on track, I also recommend going into the tactics screen and instructing your driver to avoid high risk kerbs. This will tell your driver to drive more conservatively and will reduce the wear on the powertrain, which will help with engine longevity throughout a season. You can also select the option to drive in clean air, which also lowers the amount of wear on the engine.
What you are looking for during the practice runs is to watch the car setup feedback. Your driver will start to provide feedback on the car setup after a few laps, which is indicated by the 0/5 number next to the comments icon.
Each time this goes up by one, you will receive feedback on one more option within the driver satisfaction screen. Try to always ensure you complete all five to get 5/5 before pitting. This is the most efficient running method and will give you feedback on all parts of your car setup.
When you reach 5/5 in the feedback, you can box your driver and end the run. For the first stint, leaving your driver out on track for another 5-10 laps can be beneficial to help with a nice boost to track acclimatisation before pitting.
Once you bring your drivers back into the pits, you will see that the blue bars have now shrunk. This is good, indicating we are getting closer to a better car setup. How much the bars shrink depends on how close you were with your first car setup guess.
It is now time to make some adjustments. First, if any of the lines have slipped out of the blue bars, we need to fix that and ensure all five lines are within the blue bars. Based on the driver feedback, you can roughly gauge the optimal spot.
If you got bad feedback, you know that you’re a long way off, if it was good or great, you know you’re pretty close. Play with each setup option to position the lines within the blue bars and at your best guess of the optimal spot.
Some setup options significantly impact your car setup more than others. I generally adjust the front and rear wings first, which have a big impact. They are also the only options that affect the straights part of the car setup.
Complete these two areas first, and you can be confident that the straights will stay put while you adjust the rest of your setup. Then, move on to the anti-roll distribution and the tyre camber. And finally, leave the toe-out to last, as this affects the fewest options.
We want to send both drivers back out for another practice run. If the same hard compound tyres still have life left, you can reuse them or strap on a new set if you completed a longer first run. Set the run plan to around 20 or 25 laps again, and send them back out using the same pace commands and tactics as before.
You can bring your drivers in early if you complete all of the setup feedback, or, once again, you can choose to leave them out to boost the track acclimatisation score.
After bringing your drivers back in after the second practice run, you can really start to narrow down the car setup. As you move the setup options you will now notice a few different coloured lines.
The blue and white lines can help us decide which adjustments to make. If our best guess indicates that the optimal setup is to the left or right of the white line, we can move the setup values towards that side. When making adjustments, always ensure you keep the vertical lines within the blue bars.
In this step, you may only need small adjustments. If you get good or great feedback, you may only need to move the car setup one or two clicks to find that sweet spot.
If you still have feedback that is less than good, you can tactically position your adjustments. Try a more aggressive approach such as moving the bar over to the other side of your best guess, or the other side of the blue bar. This can help narrow down which side of the scale the optimal area is on.
The third practice run should be when you start achieving great and optimal feedback scores. Once again, opt for 20 laps for a minimum stint, and follow our plan of low pace and safe tactics to preserve the car.
At this stage, both drivers’ track acclimatisation should be pretty good, so wait until you get all five setup feedback comments and then box both drivers right away.
If you start a third practice run in the first practice session but the session ends, don’t worry. Progress towards the setup feedback rolls over to the next session, so don’t be scared to send your drivers out if there are only five or ten minutes left. It is better than waiting in the pit box for the session to end.
If you find that after the third practice run you still don’t have an optimal car setup, you can repeat our previous steps. Remember, make minor adjustments if the setup is good or great, and much larger adjustments if you’re getting bad feedback.
Manually managing practice sessions can become tedious after a while or after a few races. You can simulate practice sessions and let the team manage your run plans and setup.
Doing this will allow you to jump into the much more enjoyable qualifying and races quicker, but there is a downside. If you simulate the practice sessions, the driver preparation score will improve, but it almost always won’t be as high as if you manually controlled each session.
If you are striving for 100% driver preparation, manually controlling practice sessions is the only way to reliably achieve this. You can generally achieve 100% or close to 100% in the first two practice sessions.
If you feel happy with your driver prep score after one or two practice sessions, I’d recommend simulating the final practice.
After a few races, you’ll quickly get into the groove of managing the practice sessions and hitting 100% setup satisfaction. You can accelerate the session while your drivers are out on track to reduce the time it takes to complete.
If you are happy with your car setup after the first or second practice, feel free to simulate the remaining sessions to jump right into the qualifying session. There is still a reason to run practice sessions though as they will improve your track acclimatisation and parts knowledge, helping you maximise your driver’s performance boost.
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Rich is the founder, F1 car setup creator and content writer for SimRacingSetups. With over a decade of experience as a graphic designer, marketing director, competitive sim racer and avid motorsport fan, Rich founded SimRacingSetup.com to share his passion and knowledge of sim racing and Formula 1 with other sim racers. Regularly writes for sim racing website SimRaceReviews.com
View all articles written by Rich
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