Golden Lap Review: Charming 70s F1 Manager

Funselektor's new management game Golden Lap is here, complete with the charm of 1970s Formula 1. Here's our Golden Lap review.

One of the coolest-looking new racing games has launched in Golden Lap. It is a minimalistic, retro-vibes-based F1 Manager set in the 1970s, which naturally comes with a lot of charm. Let’s have a look at the game!

Funselektor is known for Absolute Drift and art of rally, but instead of a top-down racer, Golden Lap is a left turn into management territory.


Image: Funselektor

Golden Lap is an F1 manager game set in the 1970s and starts you off at the very beginning of the decade in 1970. It features a bunch of period-appropriate tracks and cars. Like some other games I have reviewed, these are all pretending to be tracks and cars we know - but they are of course not identical. We have Muttonchop as Silverstone, Hopkins Boot as Watkins Glen, and Fascar Park as Mosport.

The same approach was used for the teams: You can tell who Ezzolini are, or Chapman, or even LaBrahn with their distinctive orange.

Golden Lap Career Mode​

In career mode you select one of these teams, then your drivers and an engineer and crew chief. Each of them have their own quirks and traits. These include ones like Hooner, where your driver just destroys tires faster than everyone else, and another one that my driver has - where they get salty if the other driver has a better car than them and loses stats accordingly. These traits will change apparently over a career.

Once you have assembled your team you need select a sponsor based on your expected results, and off you go to compete in your first season. Your cars have a performance stat and a reliability stat part for the engine, chassis, and handling.

Upgrading each part is a way to up the reliability and performance stat slightly for each part - but I found the most gains by building new parts entirely. Each time I built a new part, I found larger performance gains. I also always had to give them to Antonio Villalba because he chucks a big sook if he gets a worse car, even though his teammate Piet Cilliers was slapping him in my championship. Ah, driver egos.

When you head to the track, Golden Lap is a lot simpler than a game like F1 Manager. You have two sessions for each race weekend, a qualifier and a race. On the opening screen you can see the duration as well as the forecast, and some of the traits for the track. Often tracks are in certain climates that have more rain, and some tracks are really narrow - like fictional Monaco, so there is a lot less passing. There is also the dangerous trait - which says that crashes at this track are more likely than others to be fatal. Which is kind of scary and reminds you of the era the game is set in.

In qualifying, your objective is to both set the fastest lap possible, and to develop your car setup. You send your cars out for a flying lap, and then they automatically come in. Because of this you absolutely set fire to soft tires in this session - you burn about 10 sets sometimes in a qualifying session, which is crazy.


Image: Funselektor

Party Hard, Qualify Harder​

When the session starts you also get little notifications of your drivers being a little hungover from partying too hard occasionally - which is also very 70s.

After your drivers come back from each run you have a limited amount of tokens to spend on improving each part. It is kind of strategic how you do this, you could risk lots of coins on a big 1-17 gain, or you could guarantee a 2-5 gain with 2 coins. Your aim is to get as many points as possible for your part without getting into the red section at the end, where you get a stats loss. If you get it into the orange bit right before the end you get a golden tune and a stats boost to your car.

There are yellow flags and red flags during this session - and the race to keep you on your toes.

When you get to the race you need to select your starting strategy, where you should use max burn and tire wear for the start. You can also see a short bit of the weather forecast and select your starting tire.

One of the most fun, and also most difficult parts of Golden Lap is the lack of information it gives you. Unlike F1 Manager where you have tire life and lap times already known for each tire and you can set out the fastest way to complete a race - in Golden Lap you have to freestyle it. I reckon you will learn to read the stats more as you play the game, but realistically, you just have to guess your starting tire.


Image: Funselektor

Strategy? Figure it out!​

Want to one stop on a hard, go for it - or run 4 stops on a soft. You do not actually know which one is faster, you just have to send it and find out. In some ways it is difficult, but I also found it kind of relaxing. There is a lot less reading numbers and making an optimised decision, and more moments like "I guess we’ll start on mediums, and then we’ll go to softs, and then we'll see". It makes things a bit more fun, if less predictable.

Once the race gets going, you do not have a huge amount of control over your strategy. You can tell your drivers to drive faster and use more tire, but their stress stat will go up and up and they will be way more likely to crash. You also have a team orders option if you do or do not want them to use papaya rules.

There is weather, with both intermediates and wets being available. How you manage them is up to you, but the weather slowly reveals itself as the race moves on - so you can plan slightly ahead if you want to extend stints to a certain tire. For example, I found staying out longer on slicks and going straight to wets slightly early instead of using an inter as being a viable strategy option.

The races themselves are very 70s, as cars are going to finish laps down with large gaps between each finisher. It always feels tense though, especially if you are on the verge of a battle for points, podiums or a win.

Golden Lap: Charming Visuals, Fun Details​

The best thing about Golden Lap is its look. The art style is beautiful, and it is the most aesthetically pleasing racing game that I have seen in a while. I love the colour palettes of the track with the clouds passing over. I love the bright coloured dots and the buttons that just look and feel really satisfying to click. I love the look when I golden tune a car part and it glows orange. It is so nice to play with and it looks great.

The little details are nice as well. For instance, you can hover your mouse over certain corners of a track to see each corner name, which is a nice touch. Even the sounds are great, every time a car passes pit lane you hear it go past.

Another thing I have picked up in my time playing is that it has mod support. I have already found an unofficial 1984 mod on the Seam Workshop that replaces all the teams and drivers, and there is a lot of potential for more. We have a Golden Lap category in our download section here on OverTake as well - so if you create new grids, feel free to share them with our community. It is still empty at the time of creating this review, so we cannot wait to see the first mod being uploaded!

Verdict​

I have had a lot of fun playing through my first season of Golden Lap. I think the vibes are great overall, but I do have one main concern: longevity. The core gameplay loop is very similar each race, with you throwing tires at drivers and just seeing where they end up. I also found it frustrating having to tell my driver to speed up and slow down every lap or two to avoid them getting too stressed and crashing - I found that kind of annoying to have to micro manage.

As a result, I am interested to see what the longevity of Golden Lap is. The stats should change as you go from season to season, which should keep things somewhat fresh as you progress through the years. Along with the modding support, I can see this being a game that you can get many hours out of. Alongside a game like F1 Manager though, it is missing a lot of features and gameplay elements that I really enjoy.

To be fair, however, Golden Lap also never set out to be an authentic, in-depth management simulation - its more casual approach should be obvious from its visuals, the humour in the game and the relaxed nature of Funselektor's previous titles.

The game is now available on Steam for just €14.99 / $14.99 / £12.99 with a 10% launch discount available until October 10, which is pretty economical.

And for that I recommend going out and buying it. You will get a lot of fun for your dollar. I am really excited to play this on stream a bunch - and I hope you enjoy it too if you buy it. If you are picking it up, I am interested to read your thoughts in the comments below!

4 / 5

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