First things first, welcome to F1TIME, a free online Formula One management game, in which you control a small team trying to make it to the top against players from all over the world.

F1TIME encompasses a wide spectrum of the world of Formula racing which can make it difficult to know where to start and what to do. This guide aims to make learning the basics easier and making it more enjoyable. This approach can help you go from a newbie to winning races, …though your mileage may vary.

So you've signed up and now you're eager to hit the track, but wait...

The first thing you should do is read the entire guide and the rules. No, seriously, you should read everything first. Then take your time and go through all the menus and get a good sense of how everything works. This may be the single most important step on your way to competing in C1 or struggling with a negative balance in C4.

F1TIME, like running a business or balancing your budget, is about keeping track of the details. You should save every bit of information you can to analyse or refer to when you need it. Over time this will help you progress through the ranks against stronger managers and give you the edge needed to win.

Before you can get out on track and race you need to take care of a few things. You need to decide on how many staff members you will need and start preparing for future races beyond this weekends event. A staff of four pit members won't cut it in modern F1.

Things to do when you first start F1TIME:

• Read the entire Newbie's guide (Seriously)
• Read the rules! The rules contain more detailed explanations of many of the items covered here and more…
• Hire some staff. How many is up to you, but the skeleton crew you start with probably won't make you very competitive.
• Give your designer orders for new parts. (You can't save up his time so use it all and use it wisely) Experiment with different allotments of hours to find the results that work best for you.
• Build some new parts for future races. These things take time.
• Consider going testing to improve your car or train your driver.

F1TIME is a lot more fun when you know a little about the people you race against and can have healthy rivalries. It is also a good source of support and possibly a team mate. You can contact your league mates through private message by clicking their name and sending them an F1TIME message. In the same menu you can add them to your Buddy list to make it easier to keep in touch.

You can also join your group's forum board by clicking your group's link (E.g. Class 2 - Group 4) and selecting Forum folder: Join in the bottom left menu.

Another great way to make new friends (and some money too) is to join a team, or create one yourself. Creating your own team is expensive so ideally you will want to join another manager when you first start.

On your Office page there is a link to check for teams to join in your league. You can choose a team here and make an offer or send a private message first to your fellow manager and discuss teaming up together.

A good idea is to make a checklist of all the things you need to do between races. There is a lot more to running a race team than pit babes and corporate lunches with rich sponsors. Here are only a few things you may want to add to your check list:

• Check for new sponsor offers and make sure none are expiring
• Check staff contracts and make sure they don't lapse
• Give design orders
• Build new parts
• Arrange a testing day
• Practice, warmup and qualify for the race
• Set race orders
• Double check race orders and fuel load
• Save everything!

Testing sounds like a good idea. Just remember to account for the cost of testing or your bean counters and the bank may come looking for you. Testing is covered under the rules section, but here are two very helpful hints about testing:

• The current version status and upgrade version status of your engine, gearbox and tyres can be found by clicking the expand button on the Testing Development bar.
• The big green arrow will update your car with the newest revision immediately. But be careful, you have a limited number of revisions for the season. Use them wisely!

We're getting close now. Before you go to the track though let's go over a few of the key components that make up the race weekend.

Selecting right tyres for the race is one of the most important aspects of the race strategy. Most of the characteristics of the various tyre compounds you will have to find out for yourself through testing, but here are few basic things you should know that will help you.

There are three dry tyre compounds: Soft, Medium and Hard. Under ideal conditions average soft tyres could last up to 90km; medium - 170km; hard - 250km. What are ideal conditions? Dry, about 15 degrees Celsius, medium wear (manufacturer) tyres, and a driver that has perfect DRP distribution.

Now... you will never get those ideal conditions, higher temperatures will make tyres wear faster, tyres from manufacturers that have lower wear will make them wear slower, and your driver may use a DRP that is not perfect on acceleration and braking.

Acceleration and braking are the only two DRP parameters that influence tyre wear, because tyres get the most abuse under braking and acceleration so you will always want to get acceleration and braking DRP orders just right...

When your tyres exceed the amount of wear they can take, your driver will report worn tyres, the tyres will slowly lose part of the their structural rubber causing them to lose grip, your lap times will become slower and eventually you will be in risk of one of the tyres exploding. It may be advantageous under some conditions to drive few laps with worn tyres because first laps performance loss is relatively low, but best managers try to limit those laps to only a few each stint. Trying to race worn tyres under extreme conditions is not recommended.

Once you know the basics, tyre selection will be easy. Under those previously described "perfect" conditions, on a 300km long track, you can chose 2 stop strategy with soft tyres (3 stints 100km each, driving approx 10km with worn tyres) or 1 stop strategy with medium ones (2 stints 150km each, maybe first one a bit longer, so you can try overtaking your competition in the pits if they chose to pit earlier). Hard tyres probably should not be used at all. However on many tracks conditions are not so forgiving to a soft rubber. When temperatures hit the 30s or even 40s you have to forget soft tyres and think if even medium tyres can last a full race with a 3 stop strategy, hard ones may do fine under a 2 stop strategy. But again, it is relative to the exact temperature, tyre wear and your driver's acceleration and braking DRP orders.

Important tip: Managers should note that tyres can not improve in wear beyond 'very low', therefore testing these tyres will not improve them in any way.

As of season 31 Driver Qualify Points (DQP) have been removed from the game. You no longer need to convert from DQP to Driver Racing Points (DRP).

A very important piece of your strategy are Driver Race Points (DRP). DRP is a total of the four primary skills (concentration, speed, racing line and stamina) and your driver’s experience. These DRP points are then distributed across five parameters: acceleration, braking, top speed, kerb use and racing.

Assigning more points on one parameter means that the driver should concentrate his efforts more on that aspect of driving. Clearly, a driver should know how to drive better than the team's owner - you, but we thought it would be more interesting to let you participate not only in money management, but also get your hands on the actual racing and influence driver's performance. Assigning all points to top speed does not mean that driver will be very fast. In fact, each parameter has its' optimal value and if you push over it your driver will only become slower, locking tyres under braking or attacking kerbs too hard. However, if you use less than the optimal value of points on top speed for example, the driver will not be able to find the true speed of the car and will consistently be slower than he could.

In general, it is recommended to rather assign a few points less than optimal value than over it.

It would be quite easy to find that perfect DRP distribution if you had an infinite number of laps. However under race weekend conditions, when stress reaches its' maximum, time is limited and you can only drive 25 laps in practice, 15 in warm up and 4 in qualifying to find your optimal DRP. It may be more important to limit the number of laps you drive, because each lap causes wear to your car, including the engine and gearbox you will race with. So you should aim to find a good DRP distribution in 10-20 laps, leaving another 10 or so to fine tune it.

Important tip: Do not use all your DRP points on your very first practice lap. If you are just starting to play this game – you may not want use all your DRP points at all. It is a good idea to drive your first practice lap with something like 20-50% of your DRP distributed equally on all parameters and then to increase number of points assigned on one of the parameters slowly lap by lap until you use approximately 80% of your points, so by lap 10 your DRP distribution will hopefully reach 80% (if you have used only 80% of DRP and on each parameter have assigned less than the optimum value). The last 20% may prove to be tricky and not only for you, sometimes even very experienced managers have a hard time finding more than 95% DRP distribution and have to race with a lower one, so 80% is a good start, but you will have to find a way to improve it quickly, because every lap effects your car and may not be worth driving because the benefits are out weighed by the wear on your car. A low DRP in the race will also cause your driver to lose form.

Another tip: Do a few "setup & tune up" testing sessions if you are a beginner as they will let you learn to distribute DRP points and do set ups, and you will have 50 laps to do so.

Weather plays an important role in real racing and in F1TIME as well. The track may be dry in practice and qualifying, but pouring rain in the race. Before you head out for practice it is a good idea to take a look at the Race Weekend page and assess the weekend's weather conditions. Remember that the hotter the weather the shorter the distance your tyres will last before exploding. Don't try and race on soft tyres in 44c heat unless you plan on visiting the pits frequently.

Rain is measured in millimeters (mm) and you will need to experiment to find out when the optimum time is to change between dry, intermediate and wet tyres.

A final consideration for weather is the duration. Weather is broken into 3 unequal time periods. It may be raining for a long duration or just the last 10 minutes, or the race could start in 36c heat and fall to 24c over the course of 45 minutes. It is important to understand these changes and set your pit strategy around them.

I know, it's about time! So here you are at the track for your first race. What now? The first thing you need to do is practice and find a good setup and DRP. After practice it is on to warm up and then qualifying. After that you will give your race orders and then the race. Let's go over a few key things to remember for each component of the race weekend.

There are 3 main goals you are trying to accomplish in practice; setting up the car properly for the driver and track, getting your DRP as close to 100% as possible and choosing the right tyre to use for the race. While doing this you must remember that every lap puts wear on your car parts and more importantly your race engine and gearbox. You are alos limited to only 25 laps of practice so use them wisely.

Take your time setting the DRP and car setup values one lap at a time. After each lap you should check the results in the lap box and/or the race weekend page and feedback from the driver. Also be sure to watch the lap times to make sure they are getting quicker.

After each lap you will receive feedback from your lap in a variety of ways;
• In the ‘SESSION laps’ box you will find the DRP % for the lap, the lap time and the driver’s comments about the lap. A bad time may not mean a bad setup if the driver reports he had an off on the lap.
• The green bars for front wing, rear wing, suspension and gears setup are crucial to setting up the car. Every lap the driver will give feedback and will accept or reject setup values. The dark green sections of the bar represent rejected setup values and as the range shrinks the driver will become happier with the car. The amount of feedback is dependent on your driver’s reporting skill so sometimes you may get a lot or very little reporting.
• The Race Weekend page is extremely helpful as well and it is a good idea is to keep it open in a separate browser window.

Finally, don't abuse your car in practice. Remember, this isn't the race and there are no points for first in practice. Keep in mind though that the setup and DRP will vary at different engine rev levels.

Warm up gives you an opportunity to determine how much fuel you will need to complete the race. You can also use this as an opportunity to test different tyre compounds and fine tune your DRP. There are a few things to remember when doing warm up:
• You can complete up to 15 warm up laps in groups of 3 or more laps
• Set your fuel and lap numbers. (You can only do stints of 3 or more laps, though 3 is probably not a great idea)
• The driver goes slower on his in & out laps, this will affect fuel consumption
• The rev limiter on the engine affects fuel consumption.
• You need to measure how much fuel your warm up laps use and determine the amount of fuel needed per lap.

Important Tip: It is far better to finish a race with 10-20L extra fuel than run out of petrol. As you gain experience you can reduce the fuel buffer with more confidence.

Now you need to find out where on the grid you will start the race. The first thing you will need to do when you qualify is choose your tyre compound for the race and your starting fuel. Once you hit submit this can not be changed so take your time and devise a race strategy before you begin.

Note: You can only choose between the 3 dry tyre compounds. During the qualifying and the race, and including the start, you can pick intermediates or wets at any time as well as the dry compound you have selected. So don't be worried that your race is in the wet and your qualifying is on a dry track.

When you qualify you need to check, double check and triple check your DRP and setup values match the ones you wish to use from practice and warm up. The values will be the last lap you did in warm up and may not be the ones you want to use. You only have 4 chances at pole so don't forget to turn up the revs and go for it! A word of caution though; your driver is very hard on the car in qualifying so keep an eye on the car condition.

The final step in the race weekend is to set your race orders. There are a number of settings here you will have to consider.

The first is to set your DRP. Double check you are using your ideal values and remember you no longer have to convert the DRP from DQP. The second set of values to decide on is your Overtaking and Defensive settings. This determines how aggressive or passive your driver will be on the race track. Very aggressive (high values) may lead to many accidents and unhappy league mates. Keep in mind the difficulty of passing on the track when setting these values and the ability of your driver to pass and block. You may want to consider 0/0 values to ensure you do not get in an accident with another car.

If you've joined a team you can opt to let your team mate by if he or she is faster. This may not however be very good for your driver's motivation.

The boost laps are 3 groups of 3 laps that your driver will race very fast. Timing these laps can make or break a race so think them through and try and imagine what your competitors are doing for strategy.

Finally, don't forget to set the laps on which you will pit and the amount of fuel to go in and tyre selection. Again, it is far better to finish with extra fuel than to run out.

Well almost. Now is a great time to triple check that list you made. Have you forgotten to order new parts? Are you leaving your designer with nothing to do for the next race? Are your staff going to leave unhappily after the race because you didn't renew their contracts? These are the little details that are the difference between a good manager and a great one.

Now you can watch the race the Live Race (or simple race viewer) and follow your driver's progress in the race, then start all over again for the next race weekend.

Hopefully this will improve your race results and I'm sure you'll never run out of fuel...

Good luck.

Opinions and views expressed in this guide are not official and may contain subjective material. Use this guide at your own discretion.

Compiled and edited by Neil Vaughn and Tadas Bubelevicius

Last edited on 4th July 2007.