Your first career is the on-ramp to The Undercut. This page walks you through the new-career wizard, the very first GP weekend, and the early decisions that shape your season.
The new-career wizard
Pick “New Career” from the main menu. The wizard runs through five short steps:
1. Team name
Pick anything. It’s used in the team logo, news feed, and standings tables. Renaming later is awkward but possible via save edit — better to choose well now.
2. Country
Picks the team’s flag and biases the driver pool for your country (cheaper / more available drivers from your nation). Doesn’t affect performance directly. Pick what fits the team identity you want.
3. Budget tier
The single biggest career decision.
| Tier | Starting budget | Starting reputation | Driver pool | Sponsor access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | Tight (~$15M) | 30 | Mostly rookies, a few mid-tier | Secondary sponsors only at start |
| Medium | Comfortable (~$35M) | 50 | Mix of rookies + mid-tier | Some Principal sponsors reachable |
| Large | Spacious (~$70M) | 70 | Full pool incl. top-tier | Principals from day one |
Recommendation for first career: Medium. Small is harder than it looks (one bad weekend ruins a season); Large is easier but skips some of the climb.
4. Driver country preferences
Two sliders — biases the random driver pool toward specific nationalities. Cosmetic; doesn’t affect driver quality.
5. Logo / livery
Procedural team logo + base car color. You can edit later in the team app, but a clean colour now means cleaner sponsor matches (some sponsors care about the body colour).
Hit Confirm and the season generates: 16 GP calendar, sponsor pool, supplier pool, AI teams, your driver lineup.
Hub orientation (read this once)
You land on the desktop hub — Win95-style, click an icon to open an app:
| Icon | App | Why you care |
|---|---|---|
| 🏎 | My Team | Driver lineup overview |
| 🚙 | Cars Overview | Per-car stats, grades, comparison |
| 📅 | Calendar | Season schedule + circuit previews |
| 💰 | Finance | Budget, projections, breakdown |
| 👤 | Drivers | Recruitment + signed drivers |
| 🤝 | Suppliers | Active suppliers + market |
| 🎯 | Sponsors | Active sponsors + market |
| 🏗 | Infrastructure | The 7 departments |
| 🔧 | R&D | Repair, improve, design parts |
| 🏆 | Competition | Standings (driver + constructor) |
| 📧 | PFS Mail | Inbox — read every email |
| 📰 | PFS News | News feed (informational) |
| ⚙ | Settings | Display, sim, career sliders |
The taskbar at the bottom shows the active app and the calendar date. The “Next GP →” button (right of the taskbar) advances you into the next weekend pipeline.
Day-1 checklist (before the first race)
Do these in order. They take ~15 minutes total.
1. Read your e-mail
Sponsor contract drafts, driver welcome letters, supplier intros. The first few mails set expectations for the season.
2. Sign your sponsors
Open the Sponsors app. You’ll see a market list (filterable). Goal:
- Sign 1 Principal (or close to it) — biggest cheque, top of the chassis
- Sign as many Secondary as you can fit — small cheques compound
The acceptance probability shows live. If a sponsor is gated by reputation you can’t yet hit, don’t waste an offer.
3. Sign your suppliers
Open the Suppliers app. Three categories — Engine, Tires, Fuel — sign one of each. Engine first (biggest perf lever), Tires second (corner pace), Fuel last (1 stat only). See Suppliers for stat decoding.
4. Check your drivers
Open Drivers or My Team. You start with a primary + secondary driver baked in. Inspect their stats (INT/PAC/CON/ADA/STA/AGG, all 1–20). If you don’t like them you can fire and re-sign — but firing costs money and reputation, so usually you ride out year 1.
5. Browse the calendar
Open Calendar. 16 GPs across the season. Each shows climate (Dry / Temperate), corner count, target distance, circuit preview. Note which races look long (more chance for AI strategy gambles) vs. short (qualifying matters more).
6. (Optional) Skip Infrastructure / R&D for GP 1
You start with default infrastructure (level 1 across all 7 departments). Don’t try to upgrade everything at once — the budget for upgrades comes from race income, and you want a few GPs of cash before committing to upgrades. R&D is empty until you have damaged parts to fix.
Your first weekend (GP 1)
Click Next GP → when ready.
Practice (skippable for first career)
Practice plan screen — pick which areas to focus on (setup, tire wear, engine endurance, etc.). For first career, just hit “Run Practice” and let it complete. Returns a setup baseline you’ll race with.
R&D / Repairs (probably nothing)
Between practice and qualifying. With a fresh car nothing is damaged — skip through.
Qualifying plan
Two-driver editor — pick run plans. Default is reasonable for first career: 2 runs, 2 hot laps each, soft compound. Confirm.
Qualifying session
30-min headless or watched. Watch it the first time — the timing tower top-right shows the field building lap times. You’ll qualify somewhere in the bottom half if you went Small, mid-grid if Medium, top half if Large. Don’t expect pole.
R&D / Repairs (still nothing usually)
Quali damage is rare. Skip through.
Race run plan
Pick from 3 generated strategies:
- A = Aggressive 2-stop (Soft → Hard → Soft)
- B = Balanced 1-stop (Soft → Hard, default pick)
- C = Conservative 1-stop (Hard → Soft)
For first career, pick B. Lock it in for both drivers.
Race
Watch the first race at 1×. It’s 60–90 minutes real-time. Subsequent races you can crank speed via the speed buttons (top of UI), but the first time, watch every lap.
Things to do live:
- Engine map: leave at 5 (default) for now
- Pit stop: AI calls it automatically at the right lap; don’t override unless you have a specific reason
- Lift & coast / Overtake push: leave to AI
Things to watch:
- Mistake commentary — your driver’s character emerges
- Failure warnings — yellow / orange flag if engine overheats
- Pit window — see how the AI decides
- Yellow flags / Safety Car — they happen, keep racing
Podium
Top 3 get a podium scene. If you’re not top 3, the screen skips.
Debrief
Race results, championship update, prize money, repair triage. Read the repair triage: queue obvious repairs, leave the rest for later.
Click Continue → back to the hub.
Lessons from GP 1 → GP 2
Before clicking Next GP again, do one or two of these:
- Spend WU on damage repair in R&D — anything obvious from the post-race screen
- Check your finances — Finance app shows weekly burn. Make sure you’re not bleeding cash
- Read mid-season e-mails — sponsor objectives, supplier check-ins
- Calendar reading — the next GP might have a different climate (Dry vs. Temperate) which changes tire / engine priorities
By GP 5 the cadence clicks. You’ll know what to do without thinking.
Common rookie mistakes (avoid these)
- Spending all initial cash on infrastructure — leaves nothing for emergency repairs. Save 30% of starting budget as buffer.
- Signing only Principal sponsors — if you can’t hit their objective, you lose happiness fast and they may walk. Mix tiers.
- Picking Strategy A every weekend — 2-stops are riskier; the 1-stop is the default for a reason.
- Skipping qualifying — quali grid position decides 50%+ of your race outcome. Don’t auto-pilot the run plan in early careers.
- Firing drivers after one bad race — driver development is multi-season. Stats also change with stamina + race conditions; one DNF doesn’t mean they’re bad.
- Ignoring fiability — every part has a
fiabilityrating. Pushing perf without reliability work means more failures mid-race. Balance is everything. - Forgetting to save — career auto-checkpoints, but if you make a big strategic mistake you can manually save before risky decisions to roll back.
When to start a second career
After 1 full season (16 GPs) of your first career, you’ll know if you want to:
- Restart at a different budget tier
- Try a different country / driver mix
- Apply lessons learned to optimise from day 1
Don’t restart mid-season — finish the year, see end-of-season events, then decide.
What’s next
Once you’ve finished a few GPs, dig into:
- Sponsors — to optimise your roster
- Suppliers — to choose better partners
- Parts, Damage & Wear — to spend WU efficiently
- Glossary — to decode any term you’ve seen
- Finance — to project your season cashflow