iGP Manager is a completely free desktop browser-based motorsport management game that made the leap into the mobile market and more recently received a huge 3D update.
Whilst most mobile racing games are clunky and often frustrating, iGP Manager is a refreshing way to get your motorsport fix, even on the go, without having to deal with awkward controls.
This game is deep, however, so before you dive into it head first, I’m going to give you nine tips to help you get up to speed quickly in my favourite motorsport management title.
Finding people to play with
iGP Manager is an online multiplayer game with users from every corner of the globe, which means you should be able to find a league that races on the days and times that suit you, whilst also providing a suitable challenge.
When you’re new, I recommend starting with a rookie single-car league. That way you’re not just bringing up the rear every single race with no one to battle with. To further enhance the experience, you should invite some of your friends to participate in the same league. Overseeing a race on iGP Manager is fun, but doing this as you chat with friends is euphoric.
Due to the game’s “play anywhere” attitude, it’s easy to participate with people who don’t own a console or gaming PC – all you need is a phone. And if you and your friends become too fast for the league you’re in, you can simply find a new one.
Discovering a new challenge, especially after hitting max level at 20, becomes part of the allure of this game. And when you hit level 20 it will mean you’re finally ready to take on the real veterans of iGP Manager.
You can’t train talent
Raw talent is something that cannot be taught or learned and is sometimes what separates winners from champions. In iGP Manager it’s very much the same. Talent cannot be improved, but all the other stats of a driver can.
When shopping for your next driver make sure to pay close attention to the ‘Talent’ rating, as that will determine the ceiling for that driver. Higher ‘talent’ drivers will be faster than lower ‘talent’ drivers after they’ve been fully trained.
Often higher talent drivers will need more initial training, but their high talent will pay dividends later down the line. Similarly, female drivers have a lower potential weight at maximum fitness level, which means they can be five kilograms lighter than their male counterparts and very slightly faster. So a female driver with 20 talent is highly desirable.
Quick races
A semi-recent addition to iGP Manager is quick races. From the main menu, you can jump into a race any time you like. The races last about 10 minutes and are slightly faster than league races, but you can gain small amounts of experience for your driver, and learn how the tires behave at a certain track.
Quick races are a great place initially to learn how the gameplay of iGP Manager works, but even after you’ve learned the basics they can be another great resource for practising before a league event. There are both public and private quick race lobbies, so if you just want to get together with a small group of friends you can do that.
Another great aspect is that the cars and drivers are all equalized in these races, so you end up with much closer racing, even if your friends are at a higher or lower level than you.
Healthy equals fast
This goes for both drivers and cars. Training drivers is how you improve their stats, but it also reduces their health. Drivers with low health will not perform well. Give your driver time to rest before a race to ensure they’re at 100% health before the lights go out!
Health regenerates at 5% per hour, so, for example, if you’ve got 10 hours until your race, don’t train below 50%.
Also you’ll want to make sure you’re periodically fixing your car or cars, and replacing the engine when needed. Depending on the suppliers you’ve chosen this can happen at different rates, but always check the condition of your car or cars before the next round of your league championship.
There is no “OP strategy”
The real skill of iGP Manager is being able to read the information available and make the best decisions for your driver or drivers based on the circumstances. You will inevitably learn that some strategies are more effective or less effective at certain tracks, but even this can change depending on the month, distance from the equator, prevailing weather, or changes to your driver or car since the previous season.
Before qualifying for your next race analyze the characteristics of the track, check the weather report, see what your driver or drivers have to say, and even check your previous races at that track to get some clues of what might work and what might not.
Some of it is just common sense, though. Overly soft tires don’t work well in hot conditions, and hard tires don’t work well in cold conditions. If it’s going to be cool for the race then you should probably consider a softer tire. If rain is expected early in the race then maybe don’t pick that hard compound for the first stint.
The length of the race, weather, driver, car condition, and so much more can all have an impact on your final race time. The best managers use a combination of experience and gut instincts to ensure they’re losing as little time as possible.
Not too hot, not too cold
So you’ve got some friends to play with, found a driver, jumped in a quick race, learned how to keep your car and driver healthy, and picked your strategy before your first league race. By now you might have also realised that the way to get the most out of your tires is to ensure that they aren’t too cold or overheating.
To accomplish this you’ll want to play with the push level of your driver. Pushing hard will cause your driver to put in quciker lap times at the cost of some increased kinetic energy. Basically, your tires are gonna get hot!
The speed at which the tires heat up will depend on many variables that the game is calculating in the background, but a simple explanation is this: if you’re on soft tires and it’s a hot day, then you probably won’t be able to push very hard without overheating and destroying the tires.
So what’s faster? Pushing hard on hard tires or holding back on soft tires? Well, that’s for you to determine. Things like the track and conditions or the suppliers you chose and the attributes of your driver will play a role in what is ultimately the best choice for the situation.
What I like to do is use maximum push level until the needle starts to move towards hot and then start decreasing the push level until the needle stops moving and is right in the middle.
Be smart about your boost
Boost is possibly the most manual aspect of managing your car and driver in iGP Manager. Nothing else has such an immediate impact on the race, short of a puncture or sudden DNF, both of which can happen.
Your boost does not refill during the race, and is finite. You can use it both offensively to overtake someone, or defensively to keep someone out of DRS range. There are other things you can do too, like using Boost on one of your two cars to give DRS to the other car on the team.
But using Boost is always best before a long straight, and ideally coming out of a slow speed corner. Using boost early at the exit of a hairpin coming onto a DRS zone will give you extra speed all the way down to the next braking zone.
Boost can be used anywhere at any time, but if you need to be frugal then find the best spot on the track and use a little bit every lap at that same corner for maximum efficiency. It’s a delicate balance, but you don’t want to use it too early or too late. Like everything else in iGP Manager, there is a perfect way to do it, and part of the fun is the search for that perfection – just like in motorsports in real life.
Keep upgrading your HQ and staff
So now that you’re league racing and tasting the champagne on the podium you’ll no doubt start to turn your attention to your facilities and employees, which can have a real effect on your championship hopes.
The headquarters will determine things like how many parts you get for repairing your car, how many design points you get for upgrades over the season, the effectiveness of DRS and boost, and the quality of rookies being developed in the young driver academy.
While these things might seem insignificant, they actually can have an enormous impact on your ability to be competitive in the long term over the course of an entire season. You don’t want to spend too much on the HQ or staff as you can go super broke super fast, but also you do NOT want to neglect them either.
Open the game daily for free rewards and use the forums
This one seems a bit silly, but simply, opening the game and claiming the daily rewards can be a huge help when you’re first starting out in iGP Manager.
You don’t have to race or do anything else, just go in and claim the increasingly valuable daily rewards. Each consecutive day that you claim them the rewards get better until day seven, and then it resets after that.
There’s another extremely valuable resource that’s completely free in iGP Manager too, and that is the forums. The amount of information in the forums is difficult to quantify, but almost anything you could think to ask has already been asked and probably recently as well! They have forums in multiple languages, but I can only speak to the English forum, where you can find loads of active players that are ready to share their years of experience.
These tips are only a portion of the knowledge you’ll need to rise to the top of iGP Manager. It is one of the most competitive and nuanced motorsport-based games available on any platform and it just so happens to work on computers, tablets, and even phones.
We hope these tips have helped you out and if you have any tips of your own you’d like to add put those in the comments down below.
Thanks to Jose and the team of moderators at iGP Manager for helping with these tips, thanks to you for watching and reading.
