The MyTeam mode of the last few F1 games has been arguably the bit that’s most easy to skip or just forget exists. You’d certainly not have missed much new stuff by doing so.
Codemasters is aiming to change that with F1 25, though, by introducing the first significant revamp the mode’s gotten since it debuted back in F1 2020. While it doesn’t feel as massively granular and in-depth as you’d get with a game that’s fully dedicated to being a racing management sim – I’m thinking the very ‘does what it says on the tin’ Motorsport Manager or even something like Golden Lap – from what I’ve played so far, it does at least seem to offer a slight upgrade on the old MyTeam.
The biggest change is the ditching of the usual role that you, the player, take in the running of your team – which you’ve probably named something like Chicane Racing because you got to that screen, panicked, and couldn’t think of anything more interesting that wasn’t Team Dragon Force 9 Go. Gone is the owner driver, with Codemasters having made the call to “retire the concept”, because it’s not really relevant to how behemoth F1 teams operate nowadays.
It makes sense, the likes of Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren have long given way to CEO-style team bosses reporting to monstrous corporate boards, and even the independent teams like the one founded by the late Eddie Jordan are all but extinct in anything close to their original forms thanks to takeovers. It takes billions to go racing at the F1 level, and the few individuals that have that kind of wealth to their own name are far too busy destroying the world to be showing up on a Sunday and trying not to soil their fireproof undergarments as they take 130R flat. Then again, it’s not like all of that wasn’t just as true back in 2020 when the mode debuted.
So, this year you’re a team boss, with two drivers to sign, manage, and probably occasionally shout at when they crash into each other. Though, that last bit might be a bit over-complicated by the fact that every weekend will see you pick one of them to run the race as from behind the wheel. Part of the impetus the studio cites for axing the owner driver is that by having one of the drivers just be you, there was little incentive to not just prioritise yourself with every decision or upgrade, so by giving you two other people to oversee, the choices you’ve got to make should have more weight.
You can still go the Red Bull route of being a one-driver team, if you fancy. How you recruit drivers has also been revamped, with drivers now percieving your team in different ways depending on how you’ere doing in certain areas, and a new negotiation system adding a bit more meat to the signature-chasing bone by making you build up a relationship with a driver and their people before you can make a formal contract offer.
Elements that’ll influence how these extremely talented (but also usually vertically-challenged) wheelpeople see your team include the two mechanics which have been pulled over or adapted from last year’s driver career changes: accolades and fan sentiment. Both are measures of how you team’s getting along, with the former being weighted to reflecting a team’s historical status within the sport, and the latter being a measure of how you’ve viewed by fans right now.
Roped into the accolades is another ported-over feature, in the form of the rivalry system. In my 45 minutes with MyTeam 2.0 so far, I’ve not had a chance yet to see how all of those bits play out or shape a playthrough in the long-term. My initial view is a split one; all of those features worked just fine in F1 24’s driver career, so they should do the same here, but it might have been nice to see them given more unique twists to help differentiate a bit more between two separate modes that now feel like they’re blending together, mechanically.
Outside of new ‘events’ that pop up and force you to make a choice in ana area of your team (such as which driver to give simulator priority to before a certain race), a lot of the day-to-day flow of MyTeam 2.0 will feel familiar to folks who’ve played previous iterations. You’re setting upgrade research in motion using research points, and pressing the buttom to fast forward time until the next big event or race weekend happens.
There is a new wrinkle added by the research and development of parts now being separate processes, giving you some extra choice as to whether you develop one instance of the upgrade for one car first (saving some time), or try to keep things equal between the drivers by developing it for both cars at once. You’ll now find out if your upgrade development has failed and will have to be done again, as happened to me a couple of times during my hands-on.
Playing into that is the mode’s second most noticeable revamp – the facility that your team operates out of. Designed to better convey the sheer industrial size of F1 teams nowadays, you’ll see a few different bits of the facility bustling away as you jump between the main menu screens dedicated to the various elements of your team – engineering, corporate, and personnel. All of these areas can be upgraded in order to grow your team and increase its capabilities in terms of the stuff you’d expect – making the car go faster and attracting more sponsors to stick on it. There’s also now a sponsor loyalty mechanic designed to give you little boosts as rewards for sticking with one main corporate entry on the sidepod across multiple seasons, than just chasing the most dosh.
Will all of that be enough to vault MyTeam up from near the bottom of the F1 game mode importance pile to somewhere near the top? There’s certainly a chance from what I’ve played so far, but we’ll have to see.
F1 25 is set to be released on May 30 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.
