About the Game
Welcome to Team Principal: A Racing Manager. Initially a passion project, this game has become much more for me. It is a completely customizable grand prix/motorsport manager game, with a simplistic top down 2d race view. Most of the game is in the in-depth management aspect. Some key features include:
- An ever-changing grid: Teams & engines can leave, go bankrupt, join, rebrand, get bought out, fluctuate season to season. No two seasons will ever be the same, with a virtually limitless grid size.
- Simulate ANY era in this sandbox with infinite possibilities and infinite replayability. This game can handle ANY era, or season of racing in a realistic manner, with over decades of seasons of content.
- In-depth race simulation complete with REAL physics, live speeds, hyper-intelligent AI, setups that impact your actual car speeds in corners/straights, customizable temperature, weather, dirty air, tire wear, fuel consumption, safety cars, mechanical wear, and realistic results, with both simulated and non-simulated options available.
- Easy to use in-game editor, and save editor, so you can have your career mode the way you want.
- In-Depth finance system with stock, ownership, and ability to purchase stakes in rivals.
- Completely in-depth academy pipe-line system with ability to pay to assign your rookie drivers in junior series teams, have them test for you, learn the ropes in rival junior teams you own, and eventually promote them to your team.
- In-depth regulatory system that can change the environment of the game season to season.
- In-depth negotiation system for tyres, parts, sponsorship, works engines, customer engines, and drivers/staff.
- Ability to build and sell your own engines through an engine plant, or partner with an existing engine supplier.
- AI who compete with you every week of the season, on and off the track, in engineering, developing, strategy, and signing talents.
- Fully fleshed out car attributes, driver attributes, staff attributes, headquarters, etc.
- In-depth chassis, aero, engine, ERS, driver aids, and tyre development.
This game aims to be a FULLY customizable racing management sandbox experience for racing in any era. Every aspect of the game able to be edited and changed. Team names, performance, dirty air, tire model, points model, anything one can think of can be edited to your liking.
This game is in active development & will receive extremely frequently updates. Please join the game's discord server, wherein I will share future plans, update timelines, provide bug support, as well as the track editor. This game is extremely mod friendly, and an open canvas for any situations one wishes to develop.
Screenshots
16 imagesVersion Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
Hello everyone, I completely forgot to put v0.99.2c patch notes on here. Whoops! I have been moving extremely quick lately, and have been highly motivated to make sure this game is in the best state possible. Thank you guys for continuing to provide me motivation to work on this game at haste :) Below are patch notes for both! I wanted to mention, we added a new telemetry UI to races! As if the UI wasn't too data driven already! This is a pit-wall like view to races that provides you guys better access to live data, pit projections, etc., driven by real pit-wall layouts! I hope you guys enjoy it. It is toggleable on the top right of race views. More data is always better!! This is a toggleable view. (for windows only atm)
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45959532/c21664c5942956e3c4ab0b781e58c57d1cd480b8.png"][img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45959532/b05ebbc58da394adaeb62c35c7d47263ad0bcc6f.png"]
v0.99.2c — Patch Notes
UI improvements 🖥️
Expanded car setup UI - Completely expanded the setup UI within sessions to provide more data, driver feedback, and information relaying how on-base you are with setup curation.
Moved finished drivers above active runners in the timing table. Added classification-based finishing positions with podium colors.
Improved engine and tyre logo sizing in the team lineup screen.
Bug fixes 🐛
Fixed valid reserve-driver approaches being blocked when both main seats were filled. Negotiations now retain the selected main/reserve role.
Fixed completed parts negotiations failing to expose the signing action and resetting when revisited.
Fixed a hover-related type-error crash in the performance screen.
Fixed new Oval careers and saves depending on the selected Formula roster; they now use their own Oval pack and independent shared-data baseline.
Fixed AI teams with genuinely free partner-engine supply failing to replenish fresh engines. AI Partner teams, if the regs allow them to and they have free engines, will buy literal DOZENS of them.
Fixed non-positive team balances preventing genuinely free engine purchases.
Race strategy & optimization 🔧
Optimized race-physics and strategy calculations, in an effort to make races run smoother & quicker.
Improved blue-flag warning timing, move-aside behavior, and assistance for stalled lapping situations.
Improved leaders’ willingness to pass cars already yielding to them.
Improved refuelling strategy evaluation to avoid unnecessary scheduled stops when continuing is quicker.
Improved longer-stint selection and reduced unnecessary variation toward extra-stop strategies.
Added an overtaking-difficulty allowance to AI pit scoring, making extra stops less attractive on difficult-to-overtake tracks, especially with refueling.
Supporter Pack Adds
Added the first ~10 supporter pack requests to all vanilla rosters 😄 thanks again for that guys - i greatly appreciate it
v0.99.2d — Patch Notes
Additions
Race telemetry screen: detailed timing, pace comparisons, lap history, GPS data, weather, sector comparisons, independent strategy views, pit estimates, and driver controls, live sector timings.
Sponsor save-editor tab: added ability to edit sponsors for all teams, including title sponsors.
Colored race-log headers: event log-specific colors for overtakes, fastest laps, retirements, incidents, pit stops, and more.
Bug Fixes 🐛
I noticed all of a sudden qualifying radios were gone in my own playthrough. Restored qualifying effort radio messages, including mistake/aborted-lap reactions.
Corrected qualifying lap-history gaps to compare each lap against the session-best time instead of accumulating differences.
Improved blue-light filter performance, including the faster Low setting.
Allowed temporary current-season reserve signings when next season’s reserve is already contracted; deals end at the season boundary.
Enabled player tyre-pressure adjustments on the grid, locking them when the start sequence begins.
Thanks everyone! I LOVE working on this game and hope you all enjoy it as much as I do! More news to come.
Hello! I have a mac 🍎 🍏 version open for business now in steam betas! Access it through game properties -> game versions & betas. [img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45959532/667d4f995966c9abb7b4411c1fe045af3f878e3a.png"]It IS a beta version of a mac build and has not been tested in this configuration a ton formally yet, so please let me know if there are any issues and I will address them asap! Thanks everyone. Super excited to get this pushed out formally soon. My plan is for end of the weekend.
Please report any macOS-specific bugs (i.e crashes and UI problems) to me through the apple bug report chat.
P.S. Version is most recent version (0.991.2b) but I forgot to update that visually.
Thank you!
A new smaller patch of Team Principal is now live, bringing another round of small fixes, UI improvements, and continued polish to the game (as well as some easter eggs). Patch notes will come later & mods/saves do not need changed. Thank you as always to everyone who has been testing, reporting issues, and helping me keep pushing the game forward.
Alongside the update, I’m also really excited to finally release the Team Principal Supporter Pack! https://store.steampowered.com/app/5188340/Team_Principal_A_Racing_Manager__Supporter_Pack/
The Supporter Pack is an entirely optional way to directly support the continued development of the game. It includes no pay-walled game features, editors, or anything of the sort. As a thank-you, Supporter Pack owners can submit a name/identity for implementation into a future update as a driver, staff member, sponsor/company, driver event, new team, or another appropriate in-game reference to the vanilla rosters of the game, accessible and playable to thousands of players. If you purchase the pack, you can head over to the #🔓supporter-pack-verification channel in the game's discord, and open a ticket to verify your purchase and make your submission. I will implement into the vanilla game at my soonest opportunity. If you cannot access discord, please let me know through steam! Although my responses may be slightly delayed. Please do not ever feel pressured to buying this - I will never lock content behind it!
The Supporter Pack will help me continue to grow the game and give me the ability to partner with future collaborators. Speaking of which...I am also VERY pleased to announce that I have partnered with Mike Krybus, Senior Sound Designer at Virtual Racing Cars (VRC), for in-session car and race audio! He is responsible for many of the gorgeous sounds found in VRC's world-class mods, and some of that top-tier audio quality is soon coming to Team Principal!! The audio quality of those cars are insane. Genuinely top tier stuff, and I am so excited to get those into the game.
LASTLY, I am happy to say that I will soon begin working on the mac version of the game. I hope to deliver that to you guys soon (within a week if all goes well), thank you so much for the patience on that front.
The amount of support Team Principal has received recently has genuinely been incredible, and whether you grab the pack or simply continue enjoying the game, thank you so much for being here and helping this project grow. It has been my deepest passion over the last year. (patch notes below)
- Cookie
v0.991.2b Patch Notes
Additions
- Added manual HQ upgrade completion emails with building, level, cost, duration, and a clickable HQ link.
- Added an HQ notification dot when an HQ upgrade completes.
- Added editable annual Pay Driver funding in the Roster Editor.
UI / Optimizations
- Added animated week-transition calendars for player and spectator modes in Formula and Oval, inclusive of a pool of 40ish tips and tricks to review as you progress :slight_smile:
- Added season performance trends for teams, to visualize team performance changes throughout a season.
- Added accessibility options (blue light reduction, high contrast)
Bug Fixes
- Fixed live save performance reductions being ignored or partially applied when upgrades pushed ratings against potential caps, and fixed zero chassis baselines incorrectly falling back to 50 on rare occasions in save editor.
- Ensured save editor performance edits persist through saves, replacement chassis, upgrades, future designs, and rollover. This has been a tricky area for me, hoping this makes it more consistent.
- Fixed the Roster Editor overwriting custom sponsor amounts, ranges, and prestige requirements.
- Added Save Editor potential controls for acceleration, braking, reliability, and dirty-air sensitivity.
- Fixed tyres improperly being eaten by your drivers if you exit a qualifying or race prior to weekend completion
- OVAL - Fixed Oval junior standings to use Formula-style finish countback, including zero-point ties and DNF/DNQ ordering.
- OVAL - Restored missing historical junior DNQs from qualifying records.
- OVAL -Added career-specific saved randomness to reduce identical junior results across separate careers.
I also have some other exciting news and follow-up patches on the horizon this week, so stay tuned!
v0.99.2 Patch Notes
🆕 ADDITIONS
🏁 Race, Strategy & Sessions
• Added the optional Mandatory Tyre Compound Usage regulation, including wet-weather exemptions, strategy tracking, warnings, and results enforcement.
• Expanded the tyre model with configurable tyre wear cliffs, including separate lateral and longitudinal grip-loss multipliers.
• Added automatic race-event pauses and pop-ups for cautions, major incidents, or all incidents. Configurable in options.
• Added clearer garage and retirement indicators during practice and qualifying, including better explanations when a driver cannot be sent out due to crashing.
• Added optional team secondary-color position numbers to car markers across preseason testing, practice, prequalifying, qualifying, and races, configurable in options.
• Added a completely new refueling system for Formula, tied to two new regulations: "Refueling" and "Fuel Tank Capacity".
• Significantly overhauled AI strategy to be more malleable. If a 0 stop is permitted by the regulations and is advantageous per the tyre model for instance, they will do so.
• Fleshed out pitting, with definable track-by-track pit times, with tyre changes and refueling added on top, in separate phases
• Added pit time tracking to compare driver-by-driver.
👤 Driver Market & Negotiations
• Vastly improved AI driver recruitment logic with primary targets, conditional backups, longer decision windows for drivers, realistic reapproaches, and stronger competition between AI teams.
• Added quality floors so prestigious AI teams are less likely to panic-sign severely underqualified main drivers.
• Added team prestige as a separate influence during contested driver negotiations while preserving contract quality, personality, and relationship importance.
• Added one additional driver negotiation slot at every HQ level.
🏭 Development, Facilities & Team Management
• Added a team dashboard Needs Attention panel highlighting outstanding upgrades, stalled work, and helpful reminders for next-season preparation.
• Added direct navigation between the Factory and Parts Warehouse, while retaining oval-specific Factory behavior. Introduced some QOL buttons for the Factory/Warehouse UIs
• Added pin and delete controls directly to email subject rows.
🛠️ Save Editor & Modding
• Added support for defining future contracts for drivers, in drivers.json. These can only work for contracts beginning after the end of the starting season.
• Added editable live ERS levels to the Save Editor, including creation, fitting, and synchronization of corresponding physical ERS units.
• Added selectable current and future engine and tyre contract types.
• Supplier contract selections now support supplier-specific Works, Partner, Customer, and year-old availability, including exclusivity and duplication rules.
• Added configurable investment-event amounts for modding.
• Populated default tyre models with the new tyre-cliff settings.
• Added ability to define track specific pit time loss.
🔧 QOL / IMPROVEMENTS
🏁 Race, Strategy & Tyres
• Improved AI strategy evaluation with a more realistic active physics model when comparing tyres, fuel loads, and pit stops, including refuelling strategies to better match fuel loads with expected tyre stint lengths. AI will adapt. If you want less stops for example, lower tyre wear/increase pit loss time.
• Improved wet-weather tyre selection when preferred compounds are unavailable.
• Improved starting strategies offered to manually controlled drivers.
• Improved strategy tyre-set management so removed stints correctly release their tyre sets and planners cannot schedule more physical sets than are available.
• DRS detection now correctly evaluates physically close cars on different laps, including leaders and backmarkers, so that they can also get DRS, even if not on the same lap.
👤 Driver Market & Negotiations
• All drivers take longer to decide on contracts, in a more realistic manner. Typically signings begin in week 20ish, and continue into week 45ish.
• Increased likelihood of AI teams willing to challenge rivals for desirable drivers.
• Prevented AI teams from promising first-driver status to multiple candidates competing for the same seat. Looking at you, Mercurion, who decided to offer both Magnus Vester and Louis Hamrell first driver status.
• Improved negotiation percentage displays and general offer feedback.
🏭 Development, Facilities & Equipment
• Investor and manufacturer facility upgrades now automatically cancel superseded HQ construction, waive remaining payments, release the project, and notify the affected player or parent team.
• Improved AI engine selection to avoid unnecessary allocation penalties when suitable used engines are available.
• Improved engine rollover synchronization across power, lap-time representation, contracts, designs, suppliers, and manufactured units.
• Improved ERS and driver-aid development displays so remaining weeks always round upward.
• Expanded the current-car rating area on the next-season chassis screen so potential ratings remain visible at 1080p.
• Removed upfront cash requirements when signing supplier contracts.
• Eligible drivers with scripted future main-series contracts can now continue racing in junior series before those contracts begin.
• Fixed a lot of the menu lag, and loading save time. Included loading bars on multiple UIs. Massive UI speedups.
🖥️ Interface & Quality of Life
• Improved dashboard header sizing, notification links, and empty-state text.
• Added driver ages and nationality flags to the negotiation screen.
• Updated regulation icons and reorganized selected regulation controls.
• Improved strategy labels, upgrade-button text, and several responsive layouts.
• Removed session-screen black bars on ultrawide and 4K displays.
• Long circuit names now truncate safely instead of hiding temperature and track-wetness information.
• Slightly adjusted team-selection logos to keep them clear of the Team Value heading.
• Improved adaptive result-table spacing across different display sizes.
🐛 BUG FIXES
🏁 Race, Strategy & Sessions
• Fixed excessive repeated pit stops in simulated races.
• Removed an obsolete UI restriction that could prevent necessary additional pit stops.
• Fixed missing race-control buttons with certain ERS/refuelling regulation combinations.
• Fixed the prequalifying results Continue button.
🔧 Engines, ERS & Equipment
• Fixed save edited engine-contract changes leaving inconsistent supplied engine specifications.
• Fixed ERS equipment reassignment during save edited driver transfers.
• Fixed some preseason testing bonuses disappearing after saving and reloading.
• Fixed engine rollover inconsistencies affecting engine specifications and associated systems.
• Fixed Oval next-season driver readiness checks.
• Fixed car-number and equipment reassignment during Oval driver transfers.
• Fixed team performance calculations in the Save Editor so both main cars' ERS specifications are considered.
• Fixed ERS and driver-aid development displays incorrectly showing incomplete projects as 100% complete.
📜 History, Calendar & Rosters
• Fixed incorrect historical wins, podiums, points, championship positions, and zero-point seasons.
• Fixed historical lineup issues caused by midseason team changes.
• Restored blank historical rows for teams that did not participate in a season.
• Removed duplicate staff assignments from affected default rosters.
👤 Negotiations
• Fixed incomplete negotiation offers displaying as 100%.
• Removed duplicated negotiation offer feedback.
🖥️ Interface
• Fixed background controls remaining interactive behind Recon Centre popups.
• Fixed Finance and Season History navigation so Back and Escape correctly return to the Finance screen.
• Fixed the private-testing warehouse layout when interacting with destroyed engines, preventing controls and parts from becoming hidden or unselectable.
Thanks as always everyone!
v0.991 Patch 3
Hello! This is another patch primarily focused on major optimizations, light additions, and bug fixes. Can't WAIT to start getting through some of these ideas I have seen from you guys into the game, and to continue refinement of the oval series! Some super exciting ones I see in there. Thanks everyone!
Additions
- Added clickable driver, staff, and team hyperlinks across most management screens, with full back-navigation support for convenient browsing.
- Added more realistic qualifying timing, drivers who cross the line with 0 seconds left will not be able to record a hot lap, including late-release risk, warnings, AI timing improvements, and driver radio reactions.
- Added relationship and nationality effects to driver negotiations, so drivers with higher team relationships will slightly bias to those teams.
- Added Cornering Speeds telemetry across sessions and data exports, in a similar format to speed traps. Now, you TPs can analyze every competitors average Apex speeds AND top speeds around a lap, both live and in data logs.
- Improved Move Over team orders so yielding drivers create a more realistic gap and do not immediately fight back.
- Improved tyre negotiation UI clarity when contracts are taken.
- FINALLY, WELL OVERDUE, i have eradicated the little pygame animal once and for all, and added TPs logo to the .exe. Goodbye you little creature.
🐛 Bug Fixes
- Fixed several tyre negotiation issues involving unavailable contracts, incorrect labels, hidden failure messages, contract selection, and button hitboxes.
- Fixed manufacturer buyouts and HQ investments incorrectly upgrading, downgrading, or missing facilities.
- Fixed Chassis History showing incorrect end-of-season cars and improved chassis save persistence.
- Fixed multiple year-old chassis and regulation weight issues, including incorrect fallback weights and regulation adjustments.
- Fixed Save Editor vehicle weight handling, including modded and historical regulations.
- Improved development feedback when chassis attributes have already reached their potential.
⚙️ Optimizations & AI Improvements
- Fixed a TONNNN, like, over 15+ misc. UI bugs. Big thanks to a fellow programmer in the community who has been helping tag teaming some of these with me. The game should look a LOT more polished. As a reminder, I will be continuing to overhaul ugly ass UI's. (negotiation screens are in my sights)
- Reduced unnecessary race CPU usage drastically by limiting excessive OpenMP thread activity, which also has sped up races (for me at least) by a noticeable amount.
- Improved qualifying AI release timing, so ai will risk missing the clock sometimes while holding out for late-session track-evolution strategies.
- Improved AI driver-market decision making, particularly when comparing similarly suitable drivers and contested offers.
- Improved chassis synchronization and persistence without affecting existing development, manufacturing, fitting, or performance systems.
- Cookie
- Fixed Email crashes when using action buttons at times
- Fixed crash when loading game with bluetooth controller
- Fixed cars pack racing in 60 minute qualifying sessions
- Fixed default26/25 schedule
Thanks! Build is now live.
I have added some other small UI improvements not noted in patch notes. Below are some misc. notes about tonights patch. You may need to mess with your graphics settings upon launch.
BUG REPORTS
This has been a massive push from my end. I have thoroughly tested this build across multiple seasons, but bugs always...find a way. So please, as always, report any 🐛bug-report or 🐛oval-bug-report you encounter, preferably within the discord server. I WILL address game-breaking ones/crashes within 48 hours, and others as soon as I am able to.
MODS
As a reminder, mods ARE now out-dated. Please be patient as modders update. I have added the recent version for those who wish to continue saves.
NOTES
I was unfortunately not able to get to the oval save editor in time, but I have completed the oval roster editor. This series is very much in beta still, so please remember that prior to expecting a full experience. I will be putting an emphasis on oval in future iterations. Random, but I have also reduced Polish pricing.
Additionally, I have more closely implemented steam safeguards into this build as I have recently taken down two pirated websites. You must be logged into your steam account to load the game up. It is still playable offline. If this gives anyone issues launching or playing the game, please let me know privately.
What's Next?
I will be pushing out a DLC in the next few days, called the Team Principal - Supporter Pack. This will be a $4.99 Pack which you may purchase to support continued development of Team Principal. This will help me cover artwork commision, sound licensing, and collaboration with other programmers if I get stumped. There is NO content behind this. However, purchasing this will give you the opportunity to add any driver, sponsor, team or whatever else you wish, to all default rosters, so you may feature yourself, or others, in the base game. I have decided to NOT increase pricing on the game until I fully release when I feel the game ready, in which I will raise to $14.99. I do not plan to hide ANY features behind paid DLC, this will be my only paid DLC. That is not my ethos, and I dislike how commonplace it is in the gaming industry. I appreciate your guys continued support. Additionally, I will be releasing formal roadmaps going forward, starting next month, to provide more clarity on updates. This excludes misc. bug fixes and UI updates.
Thanks everyone, this growth has been exhilerating to witness as of late. I truly appreciate you guys as I continue to polish this game.
New Features:
- Session Log Exports: For those who wish to analyze laptimes, sectors, wear, etc., I have added an "export" button to results screens that allow you to download CSV files of laptimes, track states, and events for all competitive sessions.
- Pre-Qualifying: Pre-qualifying historically was a session teams went through when there were a large amount of cars showing up to races, back in the 80s and 90s. This session will trigger if the grid has over 30 cars, and certain teams will have to fight their way through pre-qualifying to make it to qualifying. These sessions are only active on grids of over 30! Drivers who do not make it through pre-qualifying will show as "DNPQ" on standings screens.
Improvements:
- Improved blue flag behavior in races, racing behavior, and fixed the annoying occurrence of an entire row being blocked behind drivers who stall. Drivers will swerve out of the way of stalled cars.
- Improved AI pitting under safety cars to prevent AI from destroying their races by pitting on the last lap of a safety car.
- Improved AI decision making around participating in pre-season testing.
- Very small misc. UI updates to Parts Market, Tyre Market, and Performance screen.
Bug Fixes:
- My tyre logos were not showing in any of the UI's. This has been fixed! You will see them in the tyre allocation emails and in competitive sessions.
Thanks! You may continue using older saves, they should be safe I believe. Have a great week everyone.
- Fixed both the academy UI crash that occurs when you scroll up or down on the bottom right panel, and the lap history crash.
- Fixed auto-builder in oval not working properly when queuing parts in the Factory.
- Made track rubber make sense. It persists between sessions, goes away in the rain, etc.. Track Rubber builds from Practice -> Q1/Q2/Q3 -> Race, and builds faster in hotter conditions.
- Fixed Q3 AI run-spacing, so that they stop attempting to pack race in formula cars in qualifying. AI cars will go out in a much more realistic manner now. Qualifying still has much more variety than before 0.99c.(this is more realistic in my opinion)
Thanks!
🏁 TEAM PRINCIPAL — v0.99c PATCH NOTES
A major update focused on building Oval into a complete standalone series, while expanding Formula racecraft, tyre systems, UI, tools, modding support, and stability.
🏎️ OVAL SERIES
Added an oval series as a separate playable series with its own data, managers, configuration, saves, rosters, schedule, tracks, assets, physics, systems, pit crew, and selection from the main menu. This is complete with a 45 car-grid, new entrants system, new development system, and complete realistic physics for oval racing (INCLUDING REFUELING!), on four different types of courses (Short, Intermediate, Superspeedway, Road Course). I am still attempting to get pack racing right. This series is unfinished, and acts as a beta for future expansion.
Some Highlights:
- Drivers use five 1–20 ratings: short oval, intermediate, superspeedway, road course, and control.
- Each entry has four 1–100 car packages: short oval, intermediate, superspeedway, and road course.
- Packages each use chassis, drag, tyre wear, and reliability.
- Added entry-specific performance: each driver uses their own entry’s package, not a team-wide car, more in-line with oval racing.
- Reworked Oval teams, drivers, staff, sponsors, pit crews, engines/manufacturers, and entries into dedicated JSON-driven structures.
- Added a varied Oval roster: four-car powerhouses, weak multi-car teams, single-car teams, part-time teams, 40+ drivers, additional staff, free agents, and inactive future teams, and manufacturers.
🏎️ FORMULA ADDITIONS
Added Formula multi-line racecraft:
- Track corridors/racing lines can be defined on each track.
- The AI can now perform physical lateral passing, change lanes to avoid dirty air, pick up slipstream, and realistic overtakes and defensive behavior.
- Inside/outside corner behavior, line pace compromise, cross-lane dirty air, defensive moves are all present in the racing model now.
Added Formula blue-flag behavior in both practice, qualifying, and races now that leaders have to physically clear backmarkers:
- Lapped cars identify approaching lead-lap traffic, and yield predictably, move to a safe lane, lift only after moving aside, and hold for connected groups.
Changed Formula practice/qualifying racecraft:
- Out/in laps run realistically now at reduced pace.
- Hot-lap cars can overtake traffic.
- Non-push cars yield aggressively.
- Interactive sessions retain dirty air, slipstream, and physical traffic, so timing runs is important!.
Added Formula weekend tyre allocations, similar to recognized rulesets:
- Three regulation sets.
- Physical tyre sets are now unique, with wear and reuse.
- Added tyre artwork across tyre allocation, practice, qualifying, and strategy UIs.
- Added Formula junior-series JSON assignments, allowing modders to explicitly place junior drivers in junior seats in mods.
- Added the ability to define and add retired drivers to Formula roster data/history for statistics flavor.
- Filtered Formula statistics so inactive future teams and never-raced drivers do not appear prematurely.
- Added schedule-aware Formula performance reference calculations, replacing hard-coded chi projections for AI development, gap-to-leader, and projected gains. Your gap to lead should be reflective of the tracks on the schedule now.
🛠️ BUG FIXES, UI & QUALITY OF LIFE
🏁 RACE & SESSION FIXES
- Fixed qualifying tie ordering so the driver who sets an identical lap first remains ahead.
- Improved qualifying AI run behavior, especially repeat Q2/Q3 attempts when tyres and elimination risk justify them. Removed run limit in knockout qualifying. Drivers who think they are safe will only make one run to save tyres now, etc.
- Fixed Formula ERS becoming stranded on former drivers and incorrectly triggering build-limit errors.
- Fixed Formula live save-editor performance edits so acceleration, braking, reliability, dirty air, and fitted chassis baselines actually update.
- Fixed retired drivers/defunct teams showing “International” rather than their recorded nationality.
- Fixed AI development packs without chi.json producing zero projected gains and stalled aero/spec development.
- Removed obsolete AI_DEV_AERO_MAX_ACTIVE references after its constant was removed, preventing startup crashes.
🗺️ TRACK EDITORS & DATA TOOLS
- Added Formula track-tracer nationality editing, corrected track-name/overtake-multiplier preservation.
- Added San Marino across nationality pools, editors, regen generation, drivers, teams, and tracks.
🖥️ UI IMPROVEMENTS
- Added shared smoother scrolling behavior across major Formula/Oval screens, including touchpad wheel support, horizontal navigation, scrollbars, drag support, keyboard fallbacks.
- Added larger entry-selection controls in race UIs for teams with more than four entries.
- Added Formula driver-comparison dropdowns, team logos/flags, and five-point skill radar chart.
- Fixed Formula driver-comparison radar overlap/readability and simplified overall display.
- Added strategy-help tooltips in Formula UI.
- Added aero-development tooltip explaining developing versus upgrading and diminishing returns.
- Added Formula aero-part sketch assets and layout improvements to aero dev screen.
- Changed spectator snapshot text treatment for dark team colours.
🔮 PLANNED FOR SECOND PART OF UPDATE
- A fuller owned Oval junior-ladder ecosystem: team-affiliated junior entries, program directors, simulated junior schedules, junior purses, lightweight development, and entry ownership.
- A hotfix releasing today to fix a soft-lock in tyre allocations
- Much more 🙂
Thanks everyone!!
Hello Team Principals! (is that catchy?)
I would like to release my patch notes for the newest build - v0.99b! This patch includes various new features, optimizations, UI overhauls, and lots of bug squashing. I will break out the new features below to look forward to in this update. I hope you all enjoy, and as always, feel free to relay feedback or bugs to me so I can address them. Im going to take a different approach to these patch notes this time around, as my documentation log on bug-fixes was lost, so this will focus on features and improvements in this version.
Features
ERS Development
ERS systems can now either be disabled, spec, or open in regulations. Open regulations are enabled within the default26 roster, and spec in others, and are a new development option for teams looking for extra performance. Teams each individually develop their batteries, and can upgrade recharge, battery capacity, deployment efficiency, reliability, and most importantly, deployment power. Each team will begin with unique batteries, and prove to be hidden strengths (Mercurion...) and weaknesses (Ashton) for others!
ERS Failures
ERS systems can now also fail during races, disabling deployment for the remainder of the event. This will mean drivers will be down on power for the remainder of the race.
Technical Staff and Spec B Chassis
ERS and driver-aid staff have been replaced by unified Technical Staff, through the CFD centre, who can contribute either to chassis and aero, OR ERS and driver aids. It is up to the Team Principal to determine which department gets these important staff members. CFD Centre upgrades now increase Technical Staff capacity, while Wind Tunnel staff remain focused on chassis and aerodynamics.
Spec B chassis are a new type of in-season chassis development for teams who wish to see large swings mid-season. They are a MASSIVE investment of resources, but may provide huge in-season swings if you have a better technical team than your current car suggests. Expect AI teams with capacity to develop these as well, and expect some huge swings from certain teams.
Weather Strategy
AI teams now make SIGNIFICANTLY smarter wet-weather decisions based on weather duration, tyre suitability, pit-stop payback and changing conditions. Additional safeguards reduce unnecessary stops and prolonged use of unsuitable tyres.
Driver Media Events
Drivers can now encounter occasional paddock events involving rivalries, sponsorships, personal situations, breakthroughs and personality changes. These events can temporarily affect morale, confidence and relationships, and even add or take away certain driver or personality traits! The list of these events is available within the text file in the data folder.
Factory Auto-Building
Players can now assign a long queue in the factory, which will then automatically be built by engineers rather than having to manually assign. Players may still set staff manually, but unused capacity will roll into queued projects and be auto-completed.
Race Event Archive
The race event log can now be opened into a searchable, scrollable full-session archive.
UI Improvements
The Finance, Stock Market, and Team by team budget screens have been top-to-bottom overhauled completely. I hope you enjoy it! Additionally, I have added factory builds to the dashboard UI for easy viewing. Personnel centre has also seen some minor revisions. Additionally, spectator mode has the modernized team dashboard now! (Also added a couple tooltips for new players in dev/finance, will add more)
Deleting Saves
Self explanatory. Saves can now be deleted on the load save screen. Hooray!
Starting Cash
Teams can now be given different starting cash amounts from the teams.json file, rather than every team starting on 20m.
Race Event Log
The complete race event log history in races can now be clickable and viewable, so that players can follow events closer. Additionally, removed the overtake spam of drivers who DNFed.
Game Performance
SIGNIFICANTLY decreased menu clunkiness and load-times, and have significantly sped up week to week transitions, and testing and practice simulations by over 50%. The game runs significantly quicker and smoother in this version.
Bug Fixes 🪲
I have killed off 13 bugs reported on discord, and 1 reported here on steam, and made optimizations around them. I have not had the time to draft the specifics, but if your report has been closed, your issue has been addressed by me.
As always, thanks everyone! I love working on this game, and have been very happy to add some highly requested items this iteration. I will be working SOLELY on a mac build this upcoming week after this update, thanks for your patience apple users!
Best,
Patrick
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!
Current Release
Build 26040837
Uploaded Oct 20, 2026
System Requirements
How to Install
TeamPrincipal.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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View AllDownload Team Principal: A Racing Manager for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Team Principal: A Racing Manager for free. Team Principal: A Racing Manager is a Simulation released by Patrick H.