We’re halfway through the F1 season, and things are heating up in the title battle. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has established a substantial lead over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, but the Ferrari has looked like the marginally quicker car in the last few races. We’re just one or two Verstappen DNFs from a title battle that could go down to the wire. Smart money would bet on Verstappen to come home with the title, especially with the lead he has, but Red Bull hasn’t been the most reliable car this year, so anything can happen. Most bookies have Max as a 1/5 favourite to win the title, but it’s important to shop around to find the best price. Online bookmakers often have better odds than local betting shops and are often more convenient to use. However, with so many to choose from, it’s important to read sites like Sports Betting Online, where you can find reviews of the best online sports betting sites. Here, you can find over 275 reviews of different bookmakers, as well as a full list of the best betting sites for your country. They also find the best bonuses and give advice on how to use them effectively. Whoever you think will win the F1 Driver’s Championship, there’ll be a site that will take your action.
Unfortunately for F1 fans, the summer break is here, meaning a four-week gap until the next race in Spa Francorchamps. You may be considering buying EA’s F1 22 to kill some time while you wait – but is it worth getting?
F1 22 is the first instalment of the serial F1 game to be developed and released under the EA umbrella. We’ve covered many EA-developed games here at UKTechNews, but this is the first where EA has taken over from an already established team. You can see the heavy hands of the EA development team as soon as you start the game, with one of the first features thrust in your face being F1 Life. This feature allows you to customise your player’s appearance, buy multi-million dollar supercars, and show off your trophies to your friends. It’s the classic “style over substance” you expect to see from big Triple-A games that we hoped wouldn’t infect a sport as pure as F1.
This F1 Life feature seems to be a waste of time on all sides. The driver’s appearance doesn’t matter beyond your profile, as you can’t see them under their helmet and racing overalls. Even buying supercars isn’t worth the time as you can’t even drive them in any online modes; they’re just another form of trophy to show off to your friends. The only way they’re implemented into the actual game is in the Pirelli Hot Laps game mode, which is about as dull as you can get. All you get is five generic drills repeated every time you play it, and they aren’t even that fun to drive!
It seems crazy that the franchise’s first foray outside the world of F1 is into supercar testing rather than the more logical step, which would be F2. It just seems like it’s added on for the sake of trying to attract a younger audience that might be more susceptible to the implementation of micropayment transactions. Just think how much better this game would be if they replaced the pointless supercar, and Pirelli Hot Laps features with a fully functioning F2 calendar, where you could take a drive through the ranks and into F1.
Luckily, the focus on pointless off-track features hasn’t deterred the progression of the driving engine. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that EA’s F1 22 has the best driving mechanics we’ve seen in an F1 game. The handling model is much easier to manage in this year’s version compared to last year. These cars have a lot more downforce, which lets you push throughout your lap without worrying that the grip won’t be there. They’ve also resolved the issue with the curbs – last year, if you even looked at a curb the wrong way, you’d be sent flying across the track. There’s a lot more leeway this year if you clip them slightly while taking an aggressive line.
The wheel-to-wheel racing of the AI has improved dramatically this year too. It’s more aggressive than it has been for a long while, making you feel like you’re racing against Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen at every turn! For the past few years, the AI cars were always too quick to yield position, which doesn’t make for entertaining racing, so it’s nice to see them take a step in the right direction. They’ve also implemented some real-world changes into the game, such as Sprint Races and the change to manual pit stops, which add a nice touch.
