F1 Manager 2023 review: a strong upgrade package

Well, this is a bit of a pickle, isn’t it? The race has come to a standstill, because I hit the pause button. A crash between a few cars just happened at the Miami Grand Prix and a Safety Car is about to come on track. My two Aston Martins are in prime position to take advantage of this – we are very close to the pit entry. On the other hand, this Safety Car comes a bit early for my taste. I split strategies on my two drivers with Lance Stroll starting on the Mediums and Fernando Alonso on the Hards – both strategies were used in the actual race. Both still had quite a lot of life left on these tires, so I opted for track position and stayed out. In hindsight that was an error. My rivals just went for fresh Softs or Mediums and went flat-out, easily regaining their positions later and still having enough juice to get me into trouble. What might have worked to my advantage in real life was a costly mistake in F1 Manager 2023, where soft tire compounds are remarkably tough. They do degrade faster than their ha