Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 has arrived for iOS device owners, and it’s the long-awaited sequel to the App Store’s highest-rated mobile game ever. While Playsport’s game appears to be based on Formula 1 racing, or formula car racing in general, we should tell you right off the bat that this all takes place in a fictional universe, so don’t expect to race against the likes of Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel, or to drive a Ferrari or McLaren in this game. That said, this is a game where, as a racing team manager, you get to make all the big decisions on manpower, race strategy, car development, and the like. You start out at the lowest racing league in the in-game universe, and make your way to the World Motorsport Championship over time, and you’ll be doing all of this in a dynamic setting, where veteran drivers may age and younger drivers debut, where teams may become better or worse over time.
Needless to say, this is a very deep game, even without the inclusion of fictional drivers, and the realism here is very, very commendable. That’s why we’re apologizing in advance for the plethora of tips and tricks we’ll be sharing for you today in our Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 beginner’s guide. Yes indeed, this is a beginner’s guide, and we’ve got more tips for the intermediate and advanced players to follow, if the tips we’ll be sharing to you today aren’t enough. Read on, and we’ll have you finishing on the podium, if not first place early on in the game in no time flat!
1. It’s All About Strategy, Not Timing
One thing we have to explain about Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 is the fact that this is a strategy/management game. This isn’t your standard racing game where you need to have impeccable timing to make a perfect start, or to shift your gears at the right place and time. It’s all about how you manage your racing team, the strategies you have your drivers carry out, the people you hire, the parts you buy, and so on, and so forth. We’re not even sure if this should qualify as a tip, but then again, we might as well mention it — there are racing management games, after all, that also require you to be involved in the actual racing.
2. The Basics Of The Game
Moving on to the basics of Motorsport Manager Mobile 2, here are some things you need to keep in mind before anything else, aside from the above expectation-setting tip.
For starters, you will begin each game at the start of a new season, with a budget of $10 million, and a lineup of two drivers — based on our experience, you get one fairly solid driver, and one complete scrub, or backmarker. You’ll also start off with some sponsors already selected for your car, and if you finish well enough to meet their expectations, you can earn bonuses for qualifying, or finishing at a certain place or better. We recommend checking out the other menus after you’ve completed your first race and gotten the feel of things.
As for the actual races, there’s a qualifying stage, as well as the actual race — for the European Racing Series, races usually last between 15 and 20 laps. Before sending a driver out to qualify, you’ll need to choose their car setup based on the track layout and other factors. You can adjust this before starting the actual race, and apart from that, you can also set your race strategy before, and during a race, depending on the situation at any given time.
We’ll be explaining all these things in greater depth later in this strategy guide, so keep reading!
3. Pay Attention To The In-Game Notifications
Aside from the “i” icons in purple that tell you what each part of any given menu does or represents, Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 doesn’t skimp when it comes to pointing you to information. For starters, you should always be looking at the different sub-menus — Cars, Drivers, Engineers, and Sponsors, in particular. For Cars, you may be informed that there are some new parts you can buy and install, for Drivers, you may be notified that one of your drivers have gained some Improvement Points (through winning races — these can be applied to your drivers’ stats), and for Engineers, there may be someone whose contract is coming up, or a new staff member you can hire as a free agent. Lastly, for Sponsors, there may be some companies interested in having their corporate logo on your car, and as we’ll explain in the very next tip, sponsorship is very, very important.
4. How To Choose The Right Sponsors For Your Team
There are a maximum of six spots for sponsors on your team’s cars, with the final one becoming available once you’ve upgraded your headquarters. And whenever you have the option to choose a sponsor for your team, you’ll be given three choices — different companies that may or may not pay an upfront fee, with different amounts of money they can commit to pay per race, as well as target positions that would allow them to pay bonuses on top of that. Now these are usually short-term deals that last only a few races, so you may have to switch from sponsor to sponsor on a regular basis.
When choosing sponsors, it’s important that you weigh several factors — the number of races they can be contracted for, the upfront signing bonus, if any, and the amount of money they can pay per race. It may help to have a calculator by your side to sum up the money you could earn once the sponsor’s deal with your team expires — in most cases, you should choose the one that pays the most in total at the end of the contract, though you may also have to opt for the one that gives the biggest signing bonuses in certain instances, such as if your balance is in the red and need to avoid being in debt at the end of the season.
As a bonus tip, there’s also Sponsor Appeal to take into account — you can see this metric on the left side of the Sponsors menu. If you’ve got a greater appeal with the Sponsors, you can expect higher-paying ones to come along as you move forward in the game. You can improve this by doing well on the track, as well as by choosing Sponsors whose appeal rating is decent or better (2/6 or better, we’d say).
5. Don’t Ignore Those Social Media Posts
These aren’t actual social media posts, but rather in-universe ones that appear from time to time. Usually, they’re of little consequence — it may be a rival driver talking trash, or commenting on the results of a race or qualifying run. But sometimes, you’ll see Twitter posts (if we could call them that) from fans sharing some gossip about what the other teams are up to. That gossip just might be helpful, so don’t ignore it and dismiss it as mere rumor!
6. Should You Buy Parts Or Build Them?
Under the Cars menu, you’ll see a shopping cart icon, right above the Next Year’s Car menu. If you see a green number next to the cart, that means there are new parts available in the Marketplace. These happen to be very good parts in most cases, with high reliability, and a significant statistical improvement to your cars, should you install them. But be warned that these parts cost a ton of money, and you wouldn’t want to overspend on these parts, as that could gut your budget big-time! The only time we recommend spending to buy new parts is if someone informs you via in-game social media that one of your opponents has invested in new parts of their own.
Related: Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 Tips & Tricks: A Complete Guide to Win a Championship
Your alternative to buying parts would be building them, though you shouldn’t expect to get a very good part through this method, at least in the early goings of the game. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and if you notice that the cost to build the parts on your own is quite low compared to what you’d pay for them in the Marketplace, you can definitely expect a weak, ineffective part that might not do you any good.
7. Investing In Next Season’s Car
At the middle of the season, you will be allowed to invest R&D money in the car your drivers will be using in the next season. Not investing a single cent will leave you with a backmarker, or a car that will likely finish at, or near the back of the pack in most races, but as you spend more money, you will also ensure yourself of having a better car for the next season — maybe even a surefire championship contender.
However, we recommend that you invest a decent amount of money on research and development, but not too much — if you’ve got a good driver or two, you can still end up on the podium and win a lot of races, even if your car is middle-of-the-pack material in terms of raw stats.
8. You Can Spend Past Your Budget, But Be Prepared For The Consequences
It’s easy to get carried away and end up biting off more than you can chew in the financial sense of things. After all, new parts become available, and so do new engineers and other staff members. Sponsors may also come and go on a regular basis, and that could also do a number on your finances. Then there’s the part where you have to invest in the next season’s car. Naturally, you may encounter some situations where you end up in the red and exceed your budget.
Although it may seem well and good that you’re allowed to overspend, you will also be notified by your team’s chairman that you have a certain number of weeks to get back in the black, lest be punished by “the bank.” That means you need to make sure you have a positive balance by season’s end, or face dealing with a lower budget for the next season! It’s not pretty, to say the least, and it won’t leave you looking good in the long haul. Spend your money wisely, and avoid the temptation to go over your budget, and you should be fine.
9. How To Choose Your Cars’ Setup
We’re now moving on to the racing mechanics of Motorsport Manager Mobile. In order to make yourself look good in the sponsors’ eyes (thus increasing your Sponsor Appeal and attracting better sponsors), and earn tasty bonuses from the sponsors you have, you’ll need to scope the track out for yourself, check its basic layout, and use that to inform your race setup.
When it comes to qualifying and race setup, the first thing you’ll get to choose is your tires. Don’t worry too much about this — the game will recommend a type of tire to use in the qualifying run or race, and we don’t recommend changing this up, especially if you’re new to the game.
After choosing your tires, can choose from five settings under Aerodynamics — Tight Corners, Cornering, Neutral, Straights, and Long Straights. Tight Corners would mean putting a big premium on cornering speed, but going easy on the straights, while Long Straights would conversely mean slowing down big-time on the corners, while putting a lot of speed and effort into the straights. Choose a setup based on on the number of corners, which is displayed on the lower left side of the Strategy and Setup screen, and the time at full throttle — you’ll want to go with a corner-centric Aerodynamics setup if there are a lot of corners (15+) on the track, and with one that puts a premium on performance on the straights if you’ll be spending a lot of time (High) at full throttle.
You can also choose from three Gear Ratio settings — Acceleration, Neutral, and Top Speed. We recommend staying in Neutral regardless of the race track setup, as this doesn’t seem to have as much bearing on qualifying time and race performance as Aerodynamics does.
10. Feel Free To Experiment With Your Second Driver
As we explained above, you will usually start out with one solid driver and a weak one. You want to save your best, tried-and-true setups for the better driver, but as far as the weaker one goes, that’s where you can try different tire, Aerodynamics, or Gear Ratio settings. If it works for that driver and improves their performance, it should work for the stronger one, but if it doesn’t work, then you need not fret too much, as your team’s performance doesn’t hinge as strongly on them as it does on your top driver.
11. Race Moving Too Slow? Hit The Fast Forward Button
By default, everything takes place in real-time in Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 races, even considering the fact that you’re racing against AI opponents, and not human drivers. But you can always hit the fast forward button and have the qualifying runs or races run in double-, or triple-time; press twice if you want to go triple-time and have things play out as quickly as possible. This is far more recommended in qualifying, as you may have to fine-tune things and pay closer attention when it comes to the actual race.
12. Choosing The Right Race Strategy
Race strategy options are quite simple in Motorsport Manager Mobile 2. You’ve got your Driving Style options above, which are Conservative, Neutral, and Aggressive, and you’ve also got options for your Engine — similarly, you can opt to go easy on it, go hard on it, or go with the Goldilocks approach, leaving it in its default Neutral setting. These can be altered at any time during the race, and you may have to micromanage things as you progress from lap to lap. Typically, we like to go Aggressive on the driving style, especially for the top driver, in the early goings, or if we’re trying to play catch-up in order to get the sponsor bonus for finishing at a certain place or better. But more often than not, you’re better off leaving your cars in the neutral, default settings for most of the race. Aggressive driving results in your tires getting burnt out faster, while aggressive engine use takes its toll on your cars’ overall condition faster!
13. Make Those Pit Stops Count
Pit stops, mundane as they may sound to non-fans, can make a world of difference in the world of auto racing. Pitting at the right time could make or break a driver’s chances of winning a race, and that too applies in this game. Making a pit stop is unavoidable in a race, but what you want to do here is to minimize the number of times you go to the pits to change your tires and/or repair your car. Our technique here is to switch from one type of tires to another during a pit stop, depending on the number of laps remaining, and the number of laps a tire type can last before changing. For example, you may have taken the game’s suggestion of starting out with Soft tires, but you can change these to Mediums (8-10 laps before changing) if there are 8 laps remaining, instead of going with Softs again, which last 5-7 laps.
When talking about the right time to head to the pits for a change of tires, we suggest calling for a pit stop once your driver’s tires are at 30 percent. Don’t wait too long, as those tires could blow out when they reach 0 percent — your driver may not retire just yet, but will certainly lose a LOT of ground in the standings! And that’s on top of the time already lost if the tires’ condition is below 15 percent or so.
14. Listen To Your Drivers
Your drivers may make certain requests in the game, and you will know if your driver is making a request if you see a text balloon next to their avatar. Make sure to tap on that text balloon — sometimes, they may be making some humorous side comments about the opponent they were trying to overtake, or an opponent who overtook them. But in most cases, they may be telling you that they need to make a pit stop due to the condition of their tires, or of the car itself. Also pay attention to the type of tire they want in certain situations — choosing the wrong tire type would immediately pause the race AND force a pit stop, and that’s something you can ill afford, as these stops usually take about 25 seconds or so, including the time slowing down to enter the pits and the time accelerating from a halt as they leave the pits.
15. When It Rains…
Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 is realistic enough to take into account the fact that it could rain during a race. And that would require you to use special tires, lest your car spin out and retire, or lose a lot of ground. If the game informs you that it may likely rain during the race, get ready to head to the pits once the rain starts pouring down — go with Intermediates if Track Water levels (found at the bottom left of the race screen) are still on the low side, and Wet tires if the Track Water levels are on the high side. And make sure to change to dry tires when the sun goes back out and Track Water is almost gone! You’ve got different types of tires to use depending on the weather, and it goes without saying that rain tires don’t work well on a dry track, and vice versa.
That’s all folks. We hope you’ve enjoyed our exclusive Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 strategy guide here on Level Winner. Don’t forget to check back, as soon we will reveal even more hints for the game!
UPDATE: Be sure to read our advanced guide for Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 for even more tips and tricks!