IT SPINS OUR WHEEL WITH SCRIPTED DRAMA AND F2 RACING.

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.

But 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.

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. As it is, choosing your F2 team determines the level of interest you’ll receive from various F1 teams, so your choice does at least feel meaningful even if the season’s fleeting.

A new leagues system and improved race highlights mode both bolster F1 2019’s esports cred, but I’m still not totally sold on the virtual stewards and how they dole out penalties. This isn’t a tangible leap forward in the fundamentals of the F1 series – the handling and visuals remain roughly where they were last year, which is to say: excellent. What Codemasters has managed to add into the series in an impressively short span though is a wealth of new solo content that enriches career mode and offers a totally different challenge outside it.