F1 2019
With scripted drama and F2 racing, F1 2019 spins the wheel.
It seems obvious now in retrospect. The best way for an annualised, licensed motorsport game to stay fresh every summer when the latest iteration trots out onto the Steam Store is, clearly, to chuck in an entirely different racing series as well. With the inclusion of the 2018 F2 championship, F1 2019 feels for the first time in the series like a wider world of motorsport, offering that irresistible rags-to-riches journey in career mode and a handling model all of its own to master.
It makes a lot of sense. Codemasters has had the handling down for years now, twitchy and frightening, and giving just the right amount of rumble in your hands as you wrestle your car implausibly fast over an impeccably rendered apex. It needed to add something more than a few handling tweaks, and it did just that by placing a tier of racing below F1 and thus making a contract with the big boys feel like more of a big break.
The way it’s brandished in F1 2019’s career mode is a bit of a surprise, though. Rather than a full season of F2 racing, it’s a scripted sequence of condensed race highlights akin to Codemasters’ beloved TOCA: Race Driver which kicks off your journey to F1.
Fictionalised drivers Lukas Weber and Devon Butler mix with familiar names like Russell, Norris and Ghiotto, and the former are very much cut from the ‘broadly drawn racing stereotype’ cloth.
Cocksure English villain with waggly eyebrows: step forward, Devon. Bavarian stickler for rules and procedure: take a bow, Mr Weber.
That’s not necessarily to the detriment of this potted F2 season matinee. What is, however, is the fact it’s over so quickly. Barely half an hour passes before you’re spat out of the other side of F2
and picking an F1 team. It’s possible to participate in a separate F2 season mode – which has no bearing on your career – but it would have been nice to have the option of working a bit harder for your F1 race seat.
When you graduate to the big cars, the career mode format takes on a familiar complexion from last year’s game. It’s once again gratifying to earn the trust of your team by hitting their performance targets, and gain increasing access to its RPG-like upgrade tree for car development, spending upgrade points to allocate to particular areas. My Williams was in dire need of aero upgrades in my debut season for example, whereas the Renault-powered teams need to find engine performance to bridge the gap to Mercedes – impressively granular detail.
But there’s a twist in the tale – Lukas Weber and Devon Butler graduate to F1 along with you, replacing two real drivers and popping up in cutscenes which amp up the sense of rivalry (and, to be honest, am-dram theatre).
ON THE PODIUM
A new leagues system and improved race highlights mode both bolster F1 2019’s esports cred, which is good news for pro sim racers and those aspiring to be the next Brendon Leigh alike. I’m still not totally sold on the virtual stewards and how they dole out penalties, but I’ve yet to play a racing sim online that has cracked that particular nut agreeably.