Spy like ‘00s-era McLaren F1 in Golden Lap management game update

Ahead of Over The Hill, Funselektor’s upcoming overlanding game, it has returned to last year’s 2D management title, Golden Lap, for an update.

With the help of Strelka Games, the strategic platform sees you oversee a retro single-seater squad, battling against dynamic weather and even hungover drivers.

“You’ll find a lot to love here. It is an engrossing, addictive and refreshingly different take on the genre,” we said in our review.

Now, players (and your AI-controlled opponents) can spend $10 of in-game currency on a spy, with one of three gloriously Bond-like outcomes:

• Copy a part design
• Sabotage a part, with failure resulting in a penalty
• Report a copied part, resulting in a penalty for the team who stole the design

That last one reminds us of ‘Spygate’, a 2007 real-world Formula 1 espionage controversy, which saw McLaren thrown out of that season’s constructors’ championship and fined $100 million for receiving Ferrari intelligence.

The feature is limited to one spy per weekend and up to two spies per season.

Elsewhere, there has been a spate of tweaks in the diminutive patch, weighing in at a scant 67.55MB.

Revisions include a limitation on the number of new car parts built in each weekend (now just one), AI rival performance upgrades, the chances of an aforementioned hungover driver have increased, and for those installing mods, driver deaths can be switched off.

The full changelog is listed below. There’s no word yet if the game will reach further platforms outside of PC. From now until 20th March, there is 20 per cent off Golden Lap’s price.

Have you been enjoying Golden Lap? Let us know in the comments below.

Golden Lap March 2025 update patch notes

Spy Update

• the player and the AI can send a spy to another team (costs $10 per spy, up to 1 spy per weekend, up to 2 spies per season)
• the spy can copy a part design (gets you a free part)
• the spy can sabotage a part (failure results in a penalty)
• the spy can report a part with a copied design (results in a penalty for the team that stole the design)

Gameplay Improvements

• you can now build only one part per race weekend (the change will apply in a new career or after you complete one race weekend in your current career)
• AI will use high engine mode more often
• AI will occasionally push the car past its limits
• you can tune the car in Quali during red flag (send out is still after the red flag ends)
• increased chance of getting the Partied Too Hard trait in Quali or Race
• you can now cancel a pit order in Quali

UI Improvements

• long driver and team names are handled gracefully
• all retiring team members who participated in current or previous seasons will be included in the retiring members summary at the end of the season
• added a Points column in race results screen
• updated icons for track traits
• added a link to the Golden Lap Booklet in main menu > extras

Localization Improvements

• improved localizations for German, French and Turkish
• resolved issues with localization text not fitting in buttons or tooltips

Mod Improvements

• mod debug now checks the number of free drivers in the mod and returns a warning if there are too few
• you can now disable driver deaths
• you can now set the career decade to start in a year between 1900 and 9989