Golden Lap Review: A Simple, Fun Take On F1 Management With A Haunting Edge

Rating: 4/5

Our first year had ended well. As an underdog team slated for 10th in the championship, a surprisingly competitive car thanks to our experimental development has allowed us to finish 6th in the constructors’ – as a result, we’d become richer than ever.

Heading into season two, then, we’ve got high hopes. With plentiful cash, we’ve opted to once again go for an experimental design only this time we can now back it with drivers to match. For a two-pronged attack at competing towards the top end, those drivers are both early career hot shots with a lot of potential for growth – one of those, Swede Tim Morstan. It’s maxed out our budget, we’ve literally gone for broke.

The first race comes and after a decent qualifying, we’re starting 4th and 6th. It remains positive as both drivers threaten for the podium places in the early stages, that is until a red flag comes out. Morstan has crashed.

With the Swede out of the race, our other car brings it home for a fourth-place finish in the end, but that’s very quickly overshadowed. “Tim Morstan didn’t recover from their crash,” reads a notification. “They died.” Welcome to F1 in the ‘70s, and welcome to Golden Lap.

In a rather refreshing entry to the growing genre of motorsport management games, here’s a title that doesn’t demand too much of you. It’s visually very simple – everything is slightly cartoonishly styled, laid out in 2D with pastel colours and devoid of any intricate details.

That’s a theme that carries through to the overall gameplay too. Setting up your career is pretty straightforward, pick one of 10 teams, each with varying goals and budgets, and prepare yourself for the year ahead.

For that, there’s not a great deal of legwork you have to put in. Simply pick a pair of drivers, an engineer, a crew chief and how aggressive you want to be with car design. That can range from a conservative approach with a smaller performance window, a middle-of-the-road option or the ‘Experimental’ I’ve already mentioned – this can result in some huge gains, or big losses.

Contrast that with the bigger-budget F1 Manager, which requires so much thought before you can even get into a race, and the simplicity of Golden Lap is refreshing.

There’s no admin required ahead of a Grand Prix, and the ‘weekends’ themselves are easily managed. Practice and qualifying is taken care of in one session, with both going fast and tuning your car on the agenda.

The system for tuning your car is, perhaps unsurprisingly, very basic. Sending a car out for a hot lap will earn it up to 20 hexagons which can be cashed in for random points gains on either engine, chassis or handling. The goal is to get between 80-85 to reach ‘Golden Tune’, the best performance window. It’s possible to overshoot this, and doing so will knock your points back – so there’s an element of risk/reward at play.

You can throw as many laps in as you can fit into a 60-minute qualifying session (you can fast-forward that) as there are no limits on the number of tyres. Admittedly, after a few races, the process becomes a little repetitive and dull, but anything more complex would feel at odds with the rest of the game.

Race strategies are a little more complex. You’ve got a pick of soft, medium or hard compound tyres, and you’ll need to figure out for yourself which route is the best to go, and of course, manage the ever-present threat of rain. And it rains a lot.

Alongside those, you’ve got the option to set how aggressive your drivers are on their tyres and engines. These can offer more pace the more aggressive you go, but naturally will increase wear on the rubber and increase the risk of the car (or driver) blowing up. This was ‘70s F1 after all – things go wrong.

It’s hardly complex though, and makes for easy play sessions. There’s very little admin to do between races, either. You’ve got the option to spend some of your earned cash to build new parts for more performance or improve the reliability of those you have already, but that’s about it.

Those seeking complex, in-depth gameplay to consume most of their spare time would be better served with the F1 Manager series. However, the simplicity of Golden Lap and the ability to play it for an hour or so, put it down for a few days and revisit it without feeling the need to slog it out is a very welcome addition to the genre. As is the £12.99 asking price.

If you’ve any interest in motorsport and management games, it’s worth checking out. Just don’t become too attached to your drivers – rest in peace, Tim Morstan.