App review: Motorsport Manager

I’ve watched a lot of motorsport, I’ve played a lot of motorsport computer games over many many years. I remember fondly a game called Grand Prix Manager in the mid 1990’s which took me behind the scenes instead of behind the wheel – this month, I discovered a fondly similar concept on iOS – Motorsport Manager.

Right off the bat, I can’t help but recommend this to anyone who has a passion for motorsport. It can be played for five minutes or five hours, it’s simply a matter of how many races do you want to play.

You start your “career” as a Team Owner – give the team a name, pick a colour and choose a logo.

Your team starts off with a full complement of drivers and behind the scenes aero, design and manufacturing staff – plus headquarters to work from.

The objective is simple – win races, win the championship.

You choose to run the Australian or British championships to start out with a prize money to the championship winner of $4,000,000.

Each driver and staff member costs money, as do the staff you have in the factory – the more staff, the higher the costs, the better the staff, the higher their contracts. Your challenge is to balance the books and try to win that championship.

I won’t lie, after just a race or two I got a severe case of the Christian Horner’s – and despite having sponsors all over the car, I wanted better drivers, better staff and bigger headquarters.

So I went out and sought investment – in the form of an in-app purchase of $9.99 to put $40,000,000 in the team’s coffers.

I expanded the headquarters, I recruited new team members and invested in a young driver program. I made a few investments in the team, we won many championships progressing up through the ranks into the more elite classes of motorsport.

Then my 9-year-old son caught me playing the game, and wanted it on his iPod.

He’s loving it too – and that forced me to start a second team – and see if I could do it without investing in in-app purchases.

I could. Progress was slower, it took more seasons to become competitive, but I won the championship – and am now stuck in the next tier up struggling to make ends meet again.

From a business perspective it’s great fun, very real in the number of decisions to be made and very engaging.

And I haven’t even mentioned the races! Each event has a short qualifying and a 15-25 lap race.

In qualifying you have to choose the right gear ratio and aerodynamic setup for the track. You may get driver input, or in other levels you may not. It’s a challenge to send your drivers out and test different setups to get the right speed and qualify well.

During the race, you’re in charge of strategy, but this isn’t set and forget, you have to watch each lap, decide when drivers need to pit, which tyres to put on, monitor the weather and recommend a driving style.

It’s a load of fun, one of the best iOS games I’ve played.