Designers&Mechanics stats and perks+Power start with advanced tips.

List of all designers&mechanics stats and perks with description and tips.And the other part of the guide is power start with your own team
(you can use existing teams but it will be less efficient).Basically you can create decent team at the start of season 2.(v.2.3)

Basic Info

What the point of this guide?
Well there is already couple of mechanics&designers lists but people don't explain what perks and stats do, it's just list of names with filter, so i decide to make my own guide and hopefully explain what exactly this perks and stats do.
And additionally i want to share easy way to start new game with your own team.
Vanilla game+dlc(optional), no mods.
Tested on normal difficulty with realistic AI pit stops.

Mechanics

Before start i want to say one thing,almost all designer or mechanic perks,parts etc can be useful in some situations. For example Super Overtake Mode can be absolute OP but if you play without qualification, this perk is useless. It's up to you how to play the game.

Let's start from mechanics.

Stats

Race bonus

• Concentration - Higher value,less mistake chance on pit stop.Higher value, more chances for better pit crew.
  
• Part Fixes - Higher value,less time to fix parts on pit stop.Higher value, more chances for better pit crew.
  
• Pit Stops - Higher value,less time to change tyres/refuel.Higher value, more chances for better pit crew.

^ After hours of testing turns out that's actually a misleading information.It's for sure doesn't impact pit stop time and pit crew stats.So i have no idea what these stats do(they seems important at auto pit crew manage option but it's doesn't change anything either).If you have some confirmed information and you want to share it i will add it to the guide.
---------------------------------
After additional testing i can say that combination of these 3 stats directly influence pit crew folks that you can hire(but strangely enough if 2 mechanics have Concentration stat 20 you can still get pit crew member with high mistake chance).
So how it's seems to be working is:The higher these 3 stats the more chances to get better pit crew(not 100%).

Non-Race bonus

• Reliability - Daily bonus to reliability work in CAR improvement section.
  
• Chemistry - Time to unlock mechanic perks with driver.
  
• Performance - Daily bonus to performance work in CAR improvement section.

As far as i know current star level of both mechanics influence level of pit crew folks that you can hire.But i may be wrong.
Since you can have only one mechanic at reliability/performance at the same time, you can have one guy with 20 performance and one guy with 20 reliability for example.
Mechanics improve parts reliability/performance without additional people, so try to always keep some parts in both sections even if you put all staff in reliability/performance work.

Perks

In game perks splits in 2 different tiers, 1 and 2.

LVL1

• Engine Expert
  
• Pit Stop Guru : Tyre Changes
  
• Pit Stop Guru: Refueling : Refueling
  
• Lightfooted:Tyres
  
• Sweeter Spots

LVL 2

• Quick Fixes
  
• Push It To The Limit
  
• Nurse
  
• Pit Stop Legend
  
• Risk Taker
  
• Fuel Economy
  
• Super Overtake Mode
  
• The Sweetest Spots

That's means there is no way you can find a mechanic with fuel economy and super overtake mode or engine expert and sweeter spots.(Unless you modified game files)
I've never seen a mechanic with Sweeter spots and The Sweetest Spots.Probably removed because it's too good :)

I rate perk categories in comparison to possible time save.
Important note: All this perks are compared to 15% race/tyre trims bonus(I'm never looked inside game files but from testing it's feels like 5% bonus = -0.1 sec per lap).

Reliability perks(Decent)
• Engine Expert : Higher engine modes no longer impact condition(decent perk if you have ERS hybrid mode+weight stripping enabled, otherwise idk there is probably couple of strats with it but in my opinion it's not worth it)
  
  
• Quick Fixes : Part condition fix times are 2x faster(Worst perk in this category because you still lose a lot of time to pit and fix things, you can use it at the start of the season when reliability is low but it's only 1-2 races)
  
  
• Push It To The Limit : Removes the red zone from car condition(This perk at first looks pretty bad but in certain combination for example with weight strip or high red zone parts can be op but again pretty situational take it only if you want to have some fun or try different strats)
  
  
• Nurse : Car condition drops slightly slower(adds around 30% reliability.This perk+weight stripping are overpowered you can strip almost twice as much.)

I have to mention that weight stripping is kinda overpowered(imho) mechanic and it's up to you use it or not.But without weight stripping all these perks are worse for sure.

Pit stop perks(Fine)
In my opinion only refueling worth considering, other perks are very situational.

• Pit Stop Legend : All pit stop times are -1 second faster(-1 sec for each category[refueling,tyres,F.jack etc])
  
  
• Pit Stop Guru : Tyre Changes : Tyre changes are 50% faster
  
  
• Pit Stop Guru: Refueling : Refueling is 50% faster
  
  
• Risk Taker : Fast pit stops have -15% mistake chance

Special perks(Best)

• Fuel Economy : Fuel burns more slowly, allowing the driver to use a higher engine mode( feels like 25% less fuel usage which is pretty good, you can use push mode almost non-stop, If you like races with refueling i'd say that refueling perk will be better than this)
  
  
• Super Overtake Mode : An extra engine mode is unlocked - Super Overtake - allowing even more power, at the cost of a higher fuel burn and condition loss rate(This perk is absolute OP for qualification it's -0.5-0.7 sec per lap in comparison to 15%quali/tyre bonus which gives you only 0,3 sec per lap correct me if i wrong about numbers.And also this perk save time on practise because you need only quali trim or tyres+this perk).

Tyres perks(Good)
+25% durability to tyre(Add these to amount of laps game shows you.For example if soft 8 laps then it's +2, soft 10 laps it's +2.5).

• Lightfooted: Ultra Soft Tyres : Ultra Soft tyres wear more slowly
  
• Lightfooted: Super Soft Tyres : Super Soft tyres wear more slowly
  
• Lightfooted: Soft Tyres : Soft tyres wear more slowly.
  
• Lightfooted: Medium Tyres : Medium tyres wear more slowly
  
• Lightfooted: Hard Tyres : Hard tyres wear more slowly
  
• Lightfooted: Intermediate Tyres : Intermediate tyres wear more slowly
  
• Lightfooted: Wet Tyres : Wet tyres wear more slowly

The most universal perk is soft tyres, because you can always use them(Exception is 2 tyre compounds rule, then it's only 2 fastest compounds which means in situation U,SS,S you lose S tyres).What to pick depends on personal preferences and settings.For example you can easily do 24 laps 0 pit stops race with medium tyres+this perk assuming that's you have refuel banned and medium is your hardest compound(Read tyre guide for detailed explanation).

Qualification mini game perks(worst)
Important thing to keep in mind, i have no idea how much time you save with perfect quali mini game in comparison to overheated ones, but i rate this perks assuming that you know how to play mini game
and you always hit perfect tyres/brakes manually, so basically this perks give you nothing.If someone have numbers on this please tell me i add it to this section.

• Sweeter Spots : The Sweet Spot in qualifying is bigger
  
  
• The Sweetest Spots : The Sweet Spot in qualifying is much bigger

Now couple of my personal favorite mechanics at the start of the game:

Alyx grey(~50k per race)
Jeffrey Bacheler(~250k per race)
Maxine solde(~50k per race)

They have medium tires and overtake mode perks, Alyx and Jeffrey possible 5 star and Maxine 4,2.

Designers

Stats are pretty straight forward, higher the stat, more bonus to parts once per season.
For example if your designer have engine stat 15, once per season(when you design chassis) 15 performance added to your default( 2 best engines, brakes etc from last season becomes default for next season) engine along with engine supplier bonus.
Example: You have 3 engines at the end of the season, designer with engine stat 15 and at the start of new season you choose engine supplier that gives you +20.
Common engine 420
Uncommon engine 450
Rare engine 1020
Next season engines will be:
Common 450+15+20
Common 1020+15+20

So stats are pretty useless for designers(What i mean is difference between let's say 1 star designer and 5 star one is ~60 stats across all car parts for the price of 400+k per race,of course if you have that money there is no reason to hold into 1 star designer).


Now to the most important part, Components.

All components made by designer doesn't add time or costs when you build parts(exception is +5 days for additional Good component and +10 days for Great component).

Common

• Build time -1 Day
  
  
• Build time -2 Days per Million Spent(depends on money spend, for example:-0.5 days for 250k/-4 days for 2 mill, that's why this component much better than -1 day)
  
  
• Build time +5 Days. Unlock an additional Good Component
  
  
• Reliability +25% Performance -5

The best ones here is -1 and -2 per million,-1 day better for GT and Endurance series and -2 per million better for Single Seater.
+25% Reliability is situational.
Everything that add additional build time generally is really bad and unless you know what you doing it's not worth it.

Uncommon

• Build time -2 Days Cost Increased+500k$
  
  
• Performance +20 max, Reliability -10%
  
  
• Adds a random Great Component
  
  
• Performance +25 Reliability -10% on Tyres (Wets, Inters)
  
  
• Build time +10 Days. Unlock an additional Great Component

My personal preference is -2days for 500k.
Performance +20 and reliability-10% is decent
Others is really situational.

Rare

• Good components take no time to build
  
  
• Reliability +2% for each day in production
  
  
• Performance +40 Reliability -10% during Race
  
  
• Performance +60, Reliability -20 during Qualifying
  
  
• Performance +50 Reliability -25% on Tyres (Soft, Super, Ultras)
  
  
• No condition loss on first race

All these components are decent so it's you're choice.

Epic

• Adds a random Legendary Component
  
  
• Risk Level -1
  
  
• Reliability +40%
  
  
• Build Time -4 days. Cost Increased +$1 million
  
  
• Produce an extra part at no additional cost

This section is really easy, at least for me.Random legendary component is broken AF, i explain why.
So there is 4 possible parts that you can make with this perk:

• +90 to performance MAX
  
  
• +60 to performance MAX,+30 to performance
  
  
• +50 performance + 50 reliability
  
  
• +50 reliability

Numbers can be different depending on part but point is, worst case scenario you get +50 reliability or +90 max speed that you can't upgrade(second you can easily avoid by not creating this parts at the end of the season).
But the best thing is, you save a lot of building time and money(because epic and legendary parts cost 4/5days+500k/1kk money each) .
And another very important thing, you don't need to have test track or similar building to build this parts, which means worst case scenario you need to build lvl 1 of the building for rare parts if your designer don't have ones.
It's save large amount of money and time.When you hit late game this perk became much worse because you have all parts opened and you can choose them.
(Just to clarify, main reason why this component is that good it's because u can use it without required tier buildings, just like every other component available to designers)
But be ready for some sick combos, recently i got +60% reliability 6 times in a row.
Second best perk is Additional part for free, i really like this perk but unfortunately it's require good setup, parts RNG and strategy.Good perk but it's hard to learn how to use it properly.
Risk level -1 is decent but in my opinion it's better to take legendary -3 risk part.
Build time -4 days is really situational unlike the common and good variants.

Legendary

• Reliability +5% for each day in production
  
  
• Max Performance instantly
  
  
• Risk Level -3

Well personally for me risk level -3 is the best because it's allow you to chose any part you like and since game have RNG part pool per season you can have season with almost exclusively risky parts.
Max performance is good but since it's uses legendary slot it's situational same about 5% reliability per day.

Example of the strategy that i use with parts:
I usually skip average and good engines/brakes etc by using parts like -1 day,-2 days and etc.
So my main engines/brakes etc are great/epic(epic slot is always random legendary part)this way i can build decent part in no time and as i said before worst case scenario you got 50% reliability(which is not bad for early/middle game).

So for me decent designer at the start is Etsuko Hasimoto she have -1day build time,-2days build time for 500k,random legendary part and cost ~15k per race.
One of the best default designers is Jenny Whitehouse(possible 5 star, 4 good components
to bad she doesn't have legendary component and also she costs around 500k per race).
The best possible combination of components in my opinion is:

• -2 days per million spend
  
• -2 days for 500k
  
• Performance +60, Reliability -20 during Qualifying/Performance +40 Reliability -10% during Race
  
• Adds a random Legendary Component/Produce an extra part at no additional cost(If you have all components open[from buildings] then Additional part for free better).
  
• Risk Level -3

Power Start

If it's your first playthrough i don't recommend you to play this way.But you still can read this for some advanced tips.

After playing around for a bit i found a very "broken" way to start new game.Probably anyone who played this game a lot know it already but anyway.Let's go.

It's time to have some fun by abusing game mechanics.

So key thing is, you can create your own team and put it in F1 league.Which means you can have 37.5 millions with 10th position goal or 45 millions with 8th(At this point you have 2 options try to stay in F1 or drop to F2) in this guide i pick second.The main reason is: When we going up and down in F1/F2 leagues we abusing mechanics where game give us somewhat decent parts every time we reach new division or go down.So you don't have to upgrade any car parts in season 1.

Now couple of easy steps :
Best manager type depends on amount of seasons you gonna play(however political type seems to be the most universal mostly because there is no way to obtain additional votes besides random events or challenge pack dlc driver).
Motorsport legend background doesn't override jandermole sponsor(feelsbadman).
Theoretically if you play 10+ seasons, engineers background is the best(because by that time you can easily stockpile cash and votes).
After 20+ seasons manager background bonus doesn't really matter.Basically you have 2 options, choose something for easy start or something that go along with your strategy.For example if you like to change track layout every season Politico background would be nice bonus just to be safe on votes, if you like jandermole sponsor bonus you can take Ex-driver background(unfortunately this bonus only works with driver basic improvement rate so if driver has let's say:
1,5% per week
You get + 0,5% from Ex-driver background
And + 1,5% from jandermole
If you think about it even motorsport legend background can be usefull at 20+ seasons, since AI teams in this game tend to pick young drivers very fast you can steal them back with legend background(otherwise you have to wait at least couple months).

If you have dlc, best choice is probably nippon(in general).Without dlc it's either golden tiger or stonewell bank. I'm to lazy to test it and it's depends on rng, but i believe it's less than 13 million cash difference between 3 star and 4 star sponsors.So golden bank is probably better, if you wonder where 13 millions come from(its difference in starting package + test track 8 millions cost).[/b]
About sponsors, thing is, even if you have 2 100% marketability drivers you can't reach 4 stars, that's why u might consider Stonewell Bank.
Simple math:
Total marketability is (A+B+C)/3
Example :
A: Driver 1 = 30% marketability
B: Driver 2 = 0 marketability
C: Team = 30% marketability
Total = 20%

1 star 0+% 2 stars 30%+ 3 stars 50%+ 4 stars 70%+ 5 stars 90%+(and helipad)

You can switch your top driver which has low marketability with backup driver with high marketability every time before sponsor appears, but it's kinda "cheese" strat (+drivers will lose morale).

Now that you done with creating a team, it's time to fire all default drivers and hire new ones(if you don't know you can hire driver without scouting).Another important thing, you need to hire 3 drivers and always use reserve one at practise(some people say that he gives 50%anyway but it's not working for me, unless i chose him for practice) :

All drivers in this list want's long contract, doesn't care about position, bonuses and fee.

• Bjorn Belland 100% marketability, ~31k per race.
  
• Nevada Mellado 79 marketability, ~42k per race.
  
• Frankie Parkes 36 marketability, ~31k per race.
  
• Franky Kinney 50 marketability, ~77k per race.

So why exactly these drivers?Well the answer is simple they all have pay driver trait, decent marketability and pretty cheap.

Now it's good time to explain another game mechanic that we gonna abuse.
Pay drivers(amount of cash driver pays you depends on league you're in, for example
200k for F3,400 for F2 and 800k for F1).I'm not sure why they even add this trait but anyway, idea
is simple, we buy cheapest drivers with this trait + high marketability and make around 27 millions in one season only from drivers that finishing in 19&20 position.
There is list on google docs that you can find with all pay drivers, about 27 in total, but these are the best for our strat.

Next step is staff, you can hire anyone you like, just keep in mind one thing, any designer/mechanic with more then 3.1 stars probably won't join F2 team, so hire them before you get demoted.(drivers/staff without team have less requirements)

For example I use these 3:
Mechs: Alyx grey,Maxine solde
Designer: Etsuko hasimoto
Usually when you hire new high level staff/drivers, they require high wages and position bonuses.There is a trick that can save a lot of money.Because game make people that already hired by you have less requirements, means you can hire guy on shortest contract (12 months or less, if it's possible of course)and then immediately renew contract on better terms.
After couple hours of testing i found one strange thing, apparently if you use motorsport legend background and hire top driver in F3/F2 team this doesn't work(Maybe this made to prevent driver abuse or maybe it's a bug).

Ignore pit crew because you can hire much better with top mechanics.
Each level of staff centre give +1 to all pit crew stats(Adds after you hire them).
Ignore part design(i mean position 10 is tough goal of course, but you can do it without new parts :D).
Set money on next season car as low as possible
If you have dilemmas chose what you think is best for your situation(don't always save money)

Now about hq.

• At day one build designer centre and factory(lvl2)
  
• If you don't have designer with rare parts you need to build all things that give acces to them(test track, simulator etc)
  
• Build tour centre
  
• Build factory/designer centre(lvl3)
  
• About helipad, forecasting centre, staff centre, searching facility(or whatever it calls) these buildings depends on your personal preference and strategy, if you can live with 6 lap weather report - ok, if you don't care about additional drivers - ok. There is no point to build helipad before you reach 5 stars, but it's cost only 5-10k per race so IDK. Do whatever you like.

Maybe later i add year to date cost for each building(Probably not).But upkeep of fully upgraded HQ costs ~26 millions per year.Tour centre+car factory+theme park generates ~31 millions per year.

Racing strategy is simple, simulate practice and qualifying, x12 races whole season. (If you want you can probably win couple of races when it's rains or finish in 10-14 pos but in my opinion it's wasting of time at least with 1 star pay drivers and last place car(I managed to finish top 8 season 1 with 1 star drivers and 0 upgrades car but it's more for fun rather than profit.))

At the end of season 1 you will have at least lvl 2 design centre, factory and all rare parts buildings +around 50 mill to spend.
Amount of money you'll make in season 1:
Position 10 goal - 37.5 millions.
Drivers - 26.5 millions.
Prize for 10 place - 41.5 millions.
Sponsors around - 10 mill.
Couple words about chairman.After you drop to league bellow he's probably gonna expect you to finish 1st or 3rd.Second thing that you probably know but if you somehow finish 6-8 in season 1(or maybe even higher) in the next season he's probably gonna expect you to finish 2 places above or 2 places bellow your last season place.
What to do next is up to you.

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If you find any mistakes feel free to correct me.

Answers to comments

[redictor]

@fray_f14 you must select that particular designer component called that and when the part's done, you'll have 2 of the newly built part instead of 1. the 'no extra cost or time' refer to a tier 4 regular component that makes a second one at the cost of 500k more cost, 4 extra days and much higher red zone on both parts

[fray_f14]

I'm still not getting how "produce an additional part for no extra cost or time" works. What is considered as an additional part? Designer components, or i can make 2 parts at the same time? Help me out pls

[raoul.timmermans]

Thx!

[keilso]

If using Hasimoto, how do you reach / use the epic component without great.

[keilso]

Would I be right in saying for an ERS designer Charlotte Williams would be good at start of create your own team because she is cheap and has average, good and great components and then later when you have more buildings unlocked Hasimoto for her quick build to Epic but only when buildings unlock the great component, or do I have this all wrong

[anothabrotha👍🏼]

Hi, thanks for the summaries & information. Nicely done : )
About those Mechanics perks, here are my 2cents:

[anothabrotha👍🏼]

[list]
[*] Concentration - Hard to say, I believe it has to do with one or some of the following but have no proof;[list]
[*]Driver mistake chance
[*]Better information for setup mini-game (practice)
[*]Might be a hidden influence on Pit Stop mistakes!?
The Math the game shows for mistake chances is bogus anyway. i don´t remember the exact formulas but am 99% certain that probabilty don´t work like that!
[/list]
[*] Part Fixes - this directly influences how long it takes to repair the car after! each race.
[*] Pit Stops - again unclear, might or might not influence some of the following;[list]
[*]Access to better Pit Crew - likely
[*]Hidden factor for Pit Stop mistakes?!
[*]better Pit Stop times outside the race (Practice/Qualifying) - unlikely, in my experience sofar those times are set.
[*]better outcome when Pit mistakes happen. e.g less time loss, no Pit fire on refueling mistakes - just a thought out of my experiences with the game sofar
[/list]
[/list]

[anothabrotha👍🏼]

cheers & thanks again (hope I could further our combined knowledge somehow ;)

PS: you mention it, but "Nurse" perk & to a lesser extent "Push it to the Limit" in combination with Weight Stripping is borderline broken OP
atm I play Silva and just promoted to APS where I compete for podiums with the worst car - sick!

[redictor]

there are also a few components that are incorrect. only two come to mind at 3:42am right now though.
tier 3 component 'x2 performance weight stripping and +25 performance' is actually the x2 performance boost and +15 performance
tier 4 component '+60 performance +15 red zone' is '+40 performance +15 red zone'

[redictor]

thing is, between charlotte and peter, charlotte has a guaranteed +20 performance as tier 2, and peter is just a 1 in 2 or 4 depending on how you see it