Team Principal: A Racing Manager news & patch notes

Hello all, small maintenance patch before I take the weekend off for the holidays here in the states! Build will be live this evening. Saves will be fine, mods do not need to be updated either! No changes needed, just a more bug-free game!

**Team Principal v0.99a**

**Add-Ons**

- Expanded tutorial further and added a "skip module" button to skip certain sections.

- Overhauled schedule UI and misc. development ui (to be continued)

**Fixes**

- Fixed KeyError crash that could trigger in testing and practice sessions

- Fixed incorrect staff displaying on next chassis development screen

- Made small fix to academy UI to make sign prospect button work

- Added "main menu" back button to dashboard ui

- Fixed Q1-Q3 weather to not repeat itself each session

- Fixed endless penalties when going over engine or gearbox limit. Drivers will serve the penalty once, then clear any further penalties for that specific part, like real life.

- Fixed statistics resetting after season 1 completes.

- Fixed aero acceptance email soft-lock if no staff were assigned to project.

Thanks everyone!

Good evening! The new version of Team Principal (v0.99..i need to change my numerical digits as we are creeping up to 1.0 hahaha) will be published on steam shortly as the MAIN version! This version is a light-weight update, but packs significant UI changes and deepens a couple areas of the game, as well as bug fixes as always! The existing version will remain playable in steam. Here are my quick spark-notes on the big changes, with specific patch-notes to follow later in. There are a LOT of changes not mentioned here.

• SIGNIFICANTLY revamped dashboard UI. This is a complete change, and I have had to completely tear down and re-implement this UI. I believe this looks a LOT better and will be the standard of my UI's going forward in future updates.

• Beginnings of a guided tutorial for new players, with a toggle on in the settings to show a guide. This covers about 15% of the game so far and I will continue to expand it to a full tutorial in future updates.

• Simulated Races are 99% (yes actually) faster. They are now a usable feature of the game and can be used to quickly simulate seasons.

• Pre-Season testing is now an immersive, unique session experience (if you choose), with various testing programs you and the AI teams can aim to achieve to improve key areas of your car prior to the season beginning.

• Academy UI has been overhauled, and minor changes to standings pages.

• new default23 roster to compliment the 4 existing vanilla rosters.

On a sidenote: this game has blown up a bit over the weekend, and I want everyone to know I will not stop improving this game until it is THE standard in this genre for depth, and enjoyable, immersive gameplay. I will never be able to match the beautiful UI and graphics that the larger games have, but I hope to make up for that in other ways. Thanks for your continued support and advice everyone!! - Patrick/Cookie

Hello everyone, my next version has finally arrived. These are larger updates than the previous two, and have taken me a bit longer. I hope you all enjoy these changes as I have enjoyed making them! (please excuse any formatting errors this has been copied from discord). I truly appreciate you all and I hope to continue to improve this game iteration by iteration. Thanks everyone!! you are all the best.

Update v0.98.5 Patch Notes

This update focuses on making drivers, cars, and race incidents feel more personal, more dynamic, and more interconnected. Driver relationships now influence negotiations and on-track behavior, car setup now interacts with driver preferences, collisions have more varied outcomes, and several long-standing development, warehouse, statistics, and UI issues have been cleaned up.

Major New Features

Driver & Team Relationships

Drivers now have evolving relationships with other drivers and teams. Relationships can create rivalries, friendships, loyalty, jealousy, and tension, with long-term consequences across the save. These relationships now influence both the sporting side of the game and the contract market. Driver relationships can affect:

• Crash frequency

• Willingness to join or renew with a team

• Interest in driving alongside certain teammates

• Refusal to accept second-driver status

• Salary flexibility

• Prestige requirements

• Loyalty to current teams

• Reaction to team orders, collisions, reliability failures, wins, podiums, championships, and tenure

Relationship data is now shown in the personnel centre, negotiation screens, and roster editor, including flags, team colors, sorting, and sparse relationship editing support within the roster editor for players & modders. Negotiation screens have also been touched up a bit for this update to encompass the new changes.

Driving Style SystemDrivers now each have different balance and traction preferences, while cars derive balance and traction from chassis concept and setup choices. Driving style now affects performance across practice, qualifying, and races:

• Balance mismatch reduces cornering speed

• Traction mismatch increases spin risk

• Traction mismatch also increases tyre wear

Setup screens now show live balance and traction bars, including driver preference markers, so players can tune the car around each driver’s style, whilst trying to find the fastest setup overall. Both players and AI now have to find that balance between driver comfort and car performance. Driver negotiation and personnel centre screens now display each driver’s balance and traction preferences.

Expanded Collision System

Collisions now have a much wider range of outcomes instead of always forcing both cars to retire. Possible outcomes now include:

• Double retirements

• Single-car retirements

• Minor contact

• Spin contact

• Front wing damage

Collisions can now occur in practice and qualifying at reduced probability, with reduced relationship and morale impact. Rivalries and friendships can also influence collision probability, with rivals more likely to clash and friendly drivers less likely to make contact.

Front Wing Damage & Replacement

Contact can now damage front wings, slowing the car until repairs are made. Front wing damage has four severity levels:

• Minor

• Moderate

• Severe

• Destroyed

Each severity level applies a larger cornering-speed penalty. Players and AI teams can now replace damaged front wings at pit stops from the setup UI, using available warehouse stock. AI teams will also account for wing damage when deciding whether to pit, including late-race stay-out logic and safety car opportunities. Destroyed front wings are now properly removed and shown as unusable warehouse parts after races.

Classified Retirements - Cars that retire after completing at least 90% race distance can now still be classified. Classified retired cars:

• Keep position based on laps completed

• Can score points if eligible

• Display laps-down gaps correctly instead of total race time

Wet-Track DRS Control

DRS now automatically disables when track wetness rises above the configured threshold and re-enables when the track dries. Race control logs these messages in the event log.

Setup & Track Information Improvements

Setup screens now include a track characteristics popup, helping players understand the current circuit profile while tuning the car. The car setup screen also now displays live balance and traction values, updating as setup choices change.

Roster Editor Improvements

The roster editor now supports more advanced editing and comparison tools. New roster editor support includes:

• Creating engine suppliers directly from the editor

• Editing collision outcome weights and settings

• Comparing pecking order by overall performance or individual performance attributes for teams (this is my favorite lol)

• Editing driver/team relationship data

• Improved sponsor amount bracket layout

• Preserved starting sponsor contract lengths instead of resetting them to 3 years

Bug Fixes

Contracts, Negotiations & Sponsors

• Fixed sponsor same-industry penalties applying against current-season sponsors when negotiating next-season deals.

• Fixed engine partnership and free-supply logic so free engine supply only applies to eligible teams.

• Fixed engine stats resetting or changing after save reload.

• Fixed starting sponsor editor behavior resetting sponsor contracts to 3 years.

• Fixed overly large driver and staff performance bonuses causing extreme financial exposure.

• Fixed AI financial projections ignoring expected driver/staff performance bonus costs.

Drivers, Relationships & Statistics

• Fixed junior-series results being counted in main-series driver statistics.

• Fixed hidden driver talents leaking into academy and driver centre screens without a level 5 driver centre.

• Fixed roster editor driver traits being glitchy and allowing duplicate trait selection.

• Removed temporary realistic-relationship generation tooling.

• Fixed relationship UI headers, sorting, flags, team colors, long text overflow, and editor overlap issues.

• Fixed driver negotiation career-history scrolling and scrollbar placement.

Qualifying, Race Entry & Classification

• Fixed qualifying DNQ behavior where drivers with no qualifying participation could still be placed into the race.

• Fixed AI/player weekend car preparation using contractual main drivers instead of actual entered drivers.

• Fixed final-lap incident ordering so cars already across the finish line cannot retire before classification.

• Fixed classified retired cars displaying total time instead of laps-down gaps.

Parts, Warehouse & Front Wings

• Fixed race cars and parts disappearing from the warehouse UI when drivers were injured, expired, or replaced.

• Fixed stranded parts and engines not being recoverable when entrants changed.

• Fixed false DNS and long-term reliability issues caused by stranded equipment.

Chassis Development & Car Data

• Fixed AI aero projects being blocked by requiring full lifetime cost upfront instead of immediate/near-term affordability.

• Fixed preseason chassis bonuses not being applied canonically to fitted/current chassis baselines.

• Fixed preseason bonuses not matching physical chassis values.

• Fixed future chassis development affecting active current-season live chassis stats before the chassis was fitted.

• Fixed shallow chassis effect copies causing shared nested metadata/effect consistency issues.

• Fixed fitted-car rating caps using unrelated or future chassis potential instead of the fitted chassis design’s potential.

• Fixed current/future chassis UI and reporting inconsistencies around projected reliability and baseline values.

• Fixed chassis concept phase progress resetting when staff allocation changed.

• Fixed chassis prototype phase progress bar disappearing after staff reallocation.

• Fixed practice/session chassis condition UI showing a different percentage than the detailed condition popup.

UI & Editor Fixes

• Fixed engine market vertical scrolling when too many suppliers are present.

• Fixed team select screen lacking scrolling when too many teams exist.

• Fixed statistics season review scrollbars overlapping logos.

• Fixed sponsor amount bracket UI layout and readability.

• Fixed relationship UI overlap and long-text readability issues.

• Fixed debug/test cleanup before release, including unused pytest files and noisy debug prints.

Balance Changes

Performance Bonus Rebalance

• Driver performance bonus ranges have been reduced significantly. Staff performance bonus ranges have been reduced even further than driver bonuses.

• AI teams now budget for expected performance bonuses based on recent results, reducing surprise financial exposure. This is what was causing large AI teams to go bust, and have been fixed.

Informational Relationships now influence both racing and negotiations. Relationship effects include:

• Rivalry-based collision probability increases

• Friendly-driver collision probability reductions

• Teammate preference modifiers

• Renewal willingness changes

• Second-driver refusal logic

• Team loyalty modifiers

• Prestige requirement changes

• Salary flexibility changes

Relationships now evolve from:

• Collisions

• Team orders

• Private testing requests

• Driver status clarity

• Team performance

• Wins

• Podiums

• Championships

• Driver/team tenure

• Reliability failures

• Championship fights

Driving Style Balance

Driving style mismatch now affects real performance:

• Balance mismatch reduces cornering speed

• Traction mismatch increases spin risk

• Traction mismatch increases tyre wear

• Added tyre color in practice, qualy, and race UI's, and a small highlight around your drivers on track
• FINALLY added an icon to the exe lol

• Fixed AI spending. They are much more competitive at developing in a realistic manner without going endlessly bankrupt for no reason. Spent a lot of time improving AI spending habits. Much improved from my tests.
• Fixed aero projects at times getting stuck at 99%
• Fixed small save/reload chassis and engine weight inconsistencies
• Moved recon emails into debug emails and not development

• New spectator mode which allows players to watch the game unfold over the seasons, without having any action items themselves. If you wish to jump in, you may do so through the save editor and convert the game into a normal save at any point.

• Fixed the game locking players out from signing drivers due to "hierarchy". Driver hierarchy will automatically adjust dynamically depending on what status you sign a driver for, with a small morale boost or buff if you decide to re-order your driver status (i.e, morale will take a hit if you sign a 1st driver alongside your existing equal driver)
• Fixed the evil parts wizard stealing parts from you if you swapped drivers in the save editor.
• Fixed the external parts supplier being a load of crap in the roster editor. It is now usable

Hello everyone!

Patch 0.975 went live on steam about a week ago! This update includes two entirely new editors, a refreshed track editor, some bug fixes, loading improvements, race speed improvements, and an additional vanilla roster to enjoy for the newest version of the game!

- This patch includes a completely new roster editor, allowing players to easily edit and monitor rosters. This includes teams, drivers, staff, engines, tyre and part suppliers, part behaviors, regulations, events, buyouts, schedules, junior series, and configuration of the game. This also includes a validation check to ensure that the mod or roster you create does not throw any json or game errors. Please note that I have not incorporated assets into this roster editor yet, and modders will still need to manually include logos/photos.

- Additionally, this patch includes a native save editor, allowing edits to team information, car performance, engines, driver/staff stats and contracts, calendars, and regulations mid-save, to allow players to experiment or create their own sandbox as the seasons progress.

- Refreshed the track editor within tools. This track editor now allows you to directly load a PNG of a track background, convert the background to the raw game canvas, build the track, then fit the track to the view, so that users can build tracks on top of images now. Additionally, you may now hide the polyline from in game presentation

**Additional Improvements**

- Improved race speeds by around 25% by going through my race engine with a spyglass and optimizing a lot of areas. Still looking to cut down more time over coming patches.

- Added a load screen in weekends, so that the UI does not freeze up when entering practice or simulating sessions.

**BUGS**

- Fixed year old chassis stats differing slightly dependent on when built

- Corrected pre season bonus application

- Fixed free partner engines costing money

- Fixed test parts disappearing when unmounted. Thanks everyone!! The next patch will be my first major feature expansion since physics, and includes negotiations, more bug fixes, and some refinements I believe the game needs to continue to improve, so plan for a lot more content arriving soon :D

Hello everyone !

Not sure what to call this patch, I am thinking 0.97 or something. No clue 😄 but I am releasing the new 0.97 patch tonight! This update focuses on optimizations, bug fixes, and light expansion of features. This will be one of my last patches where I MAINLY focus on optimization, I will continue to overhaul features in the next updates going forward and more features will be added. This patch makes the game much more bug-free, and I have tested up to season 40 with no issues (kill me). Simulated races are still very slow, for which I apologize. This will be something I focus on fixing. Anywways, see below for patch notes! This update will be live within the next hour or so on steam :D. Some high priorities for the game going forward after this update

- Negotiation system overhaul for drivers/personnel

- In-game editor

- Database editor

- Speeding up races and simulated races

Thank you everyone for your patience & understanding! I will be working on this game a lot the next few months as I have more time to do so 😄 **New Features / Expansions**

- Added a full in-depth ERS / battery system as a regulation setting across practice, qualifying, and race, including automated deploy modes per track, regeneration behavior, UI controls, regulation toggles, and AI support. ERS Improves acceleration massively when being deployed. Full attack is around 1.5s quicker than no deploy around a lap. Further expansion of this feature to come.

- Added intelligent AI use of engine power modes in race and practice.

- Added intelligent AI ERS mode management in race and practice.

- Added qualifying crash risk on hot laps to create more session variability.

- Added practice-based 107% steward exemptions so drivers can still be allowed to race if they showed sufficient pace outside qualifying.

- Added player `Manual / Automatic` control toggles for pace, engine, and ERS management in race and practice.

- Refreshed the race, practice, and qualifying driver-panel UI with cleaner controls and more prominent live systems to factor in the ERS.

- Enabled fixed-header scrollable timing tables in practice and qualifying.

- Refreshed the options screen top-down, it is modern now, and added descriptions for all settings.

- Added AI aero development **difficulty** as a new gameplay option.

- All vanilla tracks now have full track art. Introduced a large oval that can come into the calendar on calendar switch events..have fun 😉

- **Added offseason team switching so the player can choose to remain at their current team or take over another eligible team for the new season**. **Game Optimizations**

- Made dots a little bigger in weekends, so more emphasis is on them.

- Expanded AI race-week equipment logic so main drivers are prioritized correctly, reserve equipment can be reclaimed, and reserve cars still receive the best remaining legal engine and chassis. This should fix the bugs where AI will show up to weekends without a chassis and DNS.

- Further cythonized and kernelized race-simulation hot paths, especially around ERS overlap/deploy math and realistic-physics prep in an effort to reduce lag. Unfortunately, on 5x speed there is still heavy lag, and i recommend on 4x or lower.

- Messed with all DNF chances and wear rates in the parts jsons to ensure there are no excessive DNFs late season. (this will fix the mass DNF bug -- extensively tested) I suggest mods utilize a similar structure to this new wear settings, and for historical accuracy, bump up DNF rates from these parts.

**Bug Fixes**

- Fixed AI engine assignment cases where mains could remain on worn engines while reserves blocked access to fresher units.

- Fixed race live speed and speed-trap reporting so ERS effects show up accurately.

- Fixed race wear being committed if a player exited a race before it finished.

- Fixed qualifying hot-lap crashes so the crashed lap does not count as a valid lap time.

- Fixed practice/qualifying timing-table scrolling behavior.

- Fixed track-map marker sizing inconsistencies across sessions.

- Fixed the mismatch between the track tracer’s background fitting and how tracks render in-session. (New track editor being released tonight)

- Made factory scrollable if you design too many parts

- Fixed AI randomly pitting about 20 times in wet races for the love of the game. AI are a bit lethargic in wet-dry-wet-dry races still. This is a continuing gripe of mine, but this should fix a lot of the ai issues in wet races

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for the support and feedback since launch. I know the UI is still rough in places, and some systems/info are hard to find, this is very early in the game's build (I started building this in August), and I appreciate everyone sticking with it while I improve.

I’ve got some really exciting news about the first major post-launch patch. I like shipping updates in “big waves”: I’ll pick one core area, expand it heavily, then ship it alongside bug fixes and UI improvements. Wave 1 is a complete physics overhaul.

Patch 1: Physics Overhaul

This update replaces the current target-laptime approach with a fully simulated, realistic race model. Cars will behave like cars — slowing for corners, accelerating on straights, and responding to aero/engine/tyre changes in a way that’s consistent and extremely realistic.

What’s included:

• A brand-new, realistic physics/race engine (top-to-bottom overhaul), and a full-practice session to monitor rivals potential setups, race pace, and to help build your own to see what the ideal setup is track to track (no mini games).

• Unique car characteristics: weight, braking force, cornering performance, drag coefficients, etc.

• Full engine modeling: horsepower + torque differences between engine packages

• Tyre model upgrades:

  • longitudinal + lateral grip

  • tyre temperature effects (including temperature-driven grip changes)

• Overhauled aero interactions:

  • dirty air / turbulence

  • slipstream / tow

  • DRS zones (optional in regulations)

• Realistic setup options

  • Adjust wing levels, tyre pressures in an effort to find the best setup for the track.

  • See the tradeoff in real time (yes, your setups will ACTUALLY make a live difference depending on what you set, the trackmap and speedtraps will show :D)

On top of the core physics work, I’ve also been expanding tracks to support sector-by-sector timing, so performance is broken down more realistically across the lap (and you’ll be able to see where time is being gained or lost, not just the final lap time). I’ve already posted a few clips of the new system in action in the Discord.

Also coming in the same patch

Alongside the physics overhaul, I’m planning to include:

• Expansions/improvements to staff and sponsors

• A batch of UI improvements and bug fixes

• Steam Workshop integration

• Lightweight helpers/tutorials for anyone who’s been struggling to figure out how the game works (that one’s on me 😅)

Target release window

I’m aiming to ship this patch late February / early March.

Thanks again to everyone who’s played, shared feedback, and supported the launch. I can’t wait to get this next update into your hands.

Best, Patrick

It’s been an incredible journey getting to this point, and I truly can’t thank everyone in the community I have for the support that made this possible. This launch is a huge milestone, but it’s only the beginning. I have so much more planned for this game, and I’m incredibly excited to keep building, improving, and expanding it in the weeks and months ahead. There are some beautiful updates already in the works, including a major physics overhaul and additional features that I can’t wait to share with you.

I want to give a massive shoutout to the amazing mod-makers who have helped shape this project, and especially Little0nion for contributing a huge amount of the artwork you see throughout the game. This project has always been community-driven, and it genuinely would not be what it is without the community.

Steam Workshop integration is coming within the next few days, but for now, players can continue to download and play mods through the existing community discord channel until that goes live. I highly recommend anyone not in the discord to join, as there is a lot of ample advice, mods, and knowledge regarding the game. For those of you who purchased the game on itch.io, I’ll be sending out Steam keys over the next 24 to 48 hours via email or Discord DMs — thank you so much for your patience while I get those sent out!

One small request: if you’ve been enjoying the game, especially if you’re transitioning from itch to Steam, please consider leaving a positive review. Reviews make a huge difference for visibility and long-term success on Steam, and they truly mean everything for a small indie project like this. And as always, if you have any concerns, questions, or feedback, especially if you’re new please reach out to me directly either through the community hub, or the discord server. I’m always happy to clarify, fix, or improve anything that needs attention within a quick turnaround time. I highly recommend new players to join the discord server :D https://discord.gg/qddXGjxs Thanks so much everyone, I cant wait to keep working on this game and making it a fantastic experience.