F1 2019 review: More exciting than the real thing with a nod to the past and the future

Returning career storylines combine with driver and rule changes to bring something much fresher than Formula One itself

F1 2019 combines beautiful visuals with spectacular racing (Codemasters)

It is telling of the current state of Formula One that the biggest change to be introduced since Liberty Media took over the sport is to its simulation game.

But true to their recent form, Codemasters have found another way with F1 2019 to keep the annual instalment fresh, with the introduction of F2 and the inclusion of a Senna vs Prost rivalry edition. As usual, most of the new features are little tweaks to the 2018 version, given the limitations of emulating a real-life sport series, but it feels like this year’s version is an exciting sign of what’s to come.

To start with the trademark career mode, players will find themselves in the Formula Two World Championship, locked in a battle with German teammate Lukas Weber and Bond villain-esque Devon Butler, your main championship rival before making the step to F1. The inclusion of those two rivals echoes the days of TOCA Race Driver, where rivalries littered your career as you progressed through the motorsport ladder. While it’s sadly limited to the three-race F2 championship taster, don’t be surprised to see a more in-depth version next year.

Weber and Butler do follow you into F1, replacing the second drivers at their respective teams, but the rivalry challenges and cut-away scenes disappear and are replaced with rather redundant email interviews, where Weber remains respectful and Butler remains anything but. Hopefully Codemasters build on this next year, as it is certainly a welcome addition to the series.

One big positive this year though is the door opening to driver changes. Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari? Sebastian Vettel in a Williams? Theoretically it can now happen, while mid-season seat swaps also keep things interesting.

The AI level feels much sharper, so much so that it’s far more enjoyable playing the career mode than online. Ramp up the difficulty and the wheel-to-wheel racing rarely seen in the real thing is very achievable at the majority of tracks, while the consistency of other drivers means tyre strategies can be utilised in efforts to under- and over-cut your opponents.

Visually, F1 2019 is a market-leader. The tracks are a thing of beauty, while the weather generator is all the more realistic with water splashing off the chassis and visibility almost non-existent when following in another car’s spray. Codemasters are certainly asserting themselves on the motorsport market when it comes to the best-looking games, with F1 2019 up there with Dirt 2.0 and what is expected from the regenerated Grid series that will arrive later this year.

The lengthy R&D element remains, meaning that if you want to make the most of the practice sessions you need to set aside plenty of time for a Grand Prix weekend – it will take about an hour to do a 25 per cent weekend with one-lap qualifying. There are no real additions to the development aspect, with Jeff the engineer back again, the same R&D tree and the same frustrating failures setting you back throughout the season. But the arrival of rules changes varying what research strategy you go with is something new, and feels like another aspect that could feature more heavily next year ahead of the 2021 changes.

But all-in-all, the career mode is extremely satisfying and worth the time and effort needed to get the most out of it.

New features in the online mode enable bigger and more competitive leagues, including the provision to compete with friends in private rooms against the AI for Grand Prix weekends or a full championship, which brings a nice familiarity to the random online aspect. The problem with F1 online – and this is no fault of Codemasters – is the precision and trust needed for good racing: knowing that a driver where brake on the limit but sensible, take their line and hold it, and not just punt you off for the fun of it. Of course this can’t be marshalled, not even by the game’s penalty system that fails to pick up a lot of collisions. With the improvements to career mode, you may just be tempted to stay away from online.

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You can, however, design your own online car within a degree of pre-set limitations, enabling users to have their own liveries, and the use of staged Grand Prix events is well organised. Practice and qualify throughout the week before a race gets underway at a set time at the weekend, and the inclusion of F1’s very own eSports platform opens up what feels like a very realistic path from your living room to the paddock.

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Overall, F1 2019 is undoubtedly the best version yet of the Codemasters series, but it can’t help but feel like a generous taster of what’s to come in 2020. But if the developers continue to move down this path, the simulation is going to feel far more exciting than the real thing.

Version reviewed: F1 2019 Legends Edition, PS4, £50.23 on Amazon.