Classic F1

Classic F1 is a lap by lap board game reproduction of Formula One. The game comes with all 33 Formula One champs, as well as all the active drivers from 2019. Every year, car, and constructor for each driver is represented individually. So, you can run a race with Lewis Hamilton, Juan Fangio, and Michael Schumacher and either choose which cars they are driving, or leave it up to chance and roll the dice to see randomly which cars they get. You can match all the greats of motor racing against each other, individually rated and normalized across the history of the sport, either in one race or a full season. There’s even an “Out of the Box” rating for every driver so if you choose to bypass the seasons option and just want to race “Ayrton Senna”, you can do so without any further ado with a standalone rating as opposed to getting his rating for, say, 1988.

Each driver is rated for speed and tactics, qualifying, fastest laps, passing and defending an attempted pass, ability in the rain, accidents and potential mechanical issues, to name but a few. Speedy drivers who excel on fast tracks will do the same here, while tacticians will show their worth on hard to pass tracks like Monaco. Drivers prone to accidents will have more issues than others, and cars prone to breaking down with mechanical issues will reflect that here as well.

Each of the tracks from 2019 are represented with their personality reflected. Tracks that favor a fast driver will do so, while tracks that test a car’s endurance will have more mechanical checks. No two tracks are alike, and some will favor one style over another. Each track has its own historic weather check, so a great driver in the rain like Jackie Stewart might benefit from certain tracks like Spa, where it often rains, rather than Singapore, where it doesn’t. The ability to pass on the various tracks is represented as well; tracks like Monaco and Catalunya are tough to get passing chances on, while Monza is easier to create chances. Some tracks give the driver the option for one stop versus two, adding strategy to the race beyond the driver’s cards.

Everything you experience in F1 is here, from qualifying day to the controlled chaos of Lap One. Safety cars, red flags, accidents and breakdowns are all a part of the game. Qualifying takes about a half hour to run; a race can be run in roughly an hour and a half. There is some basic math involved, as you keep track of the drivers by “spaces moved”, each of which represents a certain amount of time. The game is created by Anthony Apostolico, and like Classic Soccer and Time Travel Tennis, comes with a broad range of random and not-so-random results that make no two races the same.

Additional drivers are available by decade, each with a minimum of 20 drivers, so if you are a fan of a particular era, you can pick and choose exactly what you like a la carte. Nearly 300 are available in total; there’s even a set of pre-1950 drivers, so you can match the greats like Tazio Nuvolari and Bernd Rosemeyer against today’s drivers if you want. Further track sets will be available as well in the future, and we will also offer various seasons to replay as well. If you are fan of F1, there has never been as detailed a representation of the sport’s history as this game offers.