The car is the most important factor in achieving success in Motorsport Manager - it doesn't matter how skilled your drivers or how clever your tactics, if your car isn't good enough you're not going to win any races. There are two aspects to your car: the chassis and the components fitted to it.
Chassis[]
At the start of the off season your Lead Designer will contact you about next year's chassis design. There are four suppliers you need to choose, Engine, Fuel, Material and Brakes, and these choices affect the Tyre Wear, Tyre Heating, Fuel Consumption and Improvability of next year's car.
Components[]
Each car has up to six components. Each component improves a different facet of the car's performance.
Engine is related to the top speed of the car. 0% Reliability will cause the Top Speed to fall suddenly and will force the driver to retire.
Gearbox relates to the acceleration of the car. It is important for the maps involving multiple corners. 0% Reliability will cause the car to see a sudden loss of Performance but can still be repaired.
Brakes is related to how fast the car can decelerate, thus high brake performance relates to longer high speed retained before the brakes have to engage to prepare for the corner. 0% Reliability will mean that the brakes overheated too much and will force the driver to retire.
Front Wing (Single Seater Series) or Nose (Endurance Series) is used for slow corners. The more front wing you have the faster your car will go around slow corners. 0% Reliability will cause the car to lose momentum in terms of cornering but can still be repaired.
Suspension relates to the maximum speed of the car going around the corner. 0% Reliability will cause the car to lose Speed dramatically but still repairable.
Rear Wing is used for fast corners. The more rear wing you have the faster you can go around fast corners. 0% Reliability is repairable, but the car's performance will collapse afterwards.
Cars in the GT Series do not have a front wing or nose part so all have the same performance in low speed corners.
Base Stats[]
When a season has ended the parts with the best base value at this time become your new season's base parts. They don't have to be necessarily installed. Risk levels will be removed, thus you can use those parts as your new season's base parts and alter your parts development strategy at the end of a season accordingly. This is only counting for the performance, but not for the durability of the car's parts. Also, when being promoted or demoted to a new division, you'll receive new "basic" parts. Ergo, there is no need to plan parts for seasons when that happens.
Resets[]
When parts get too advanced a series has its car parts 'reset' so all teams start from a similar basis. A reset is triggered when any part goes over the reset threshold, which is different for each series. The rest of the season is not affected, but in the next off-season an email is sent notifying managers that part development has been reset. The parts are then reset to a specific value with a range of 50 to reflect roughly where the teams were where the reset happened. There is are also minimum values and any parts that fall below this are not reset. The reset values for each series are:
| Series | Maximum Value | Minimum Value | Reset Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Motorsport Championship | 2850 | 1350 | 600 |
| Asia-Pacific Super Cup | 1550 | 500 | 200 |
| European Racing Series | 900 | 300 | 0 |
| International GT Championship | 2150 | 600 | 200 |
| GT Challenger Series | 1150 | 350 | 0 |
| International Endurance Cup (Class A) | 2450 | 1600 | 600 |
| International Endurance Cup (Class B) | 1000 | 300 | 0 |
For example, if you were competing in the APS and you had the following ratings for your parts:
| Part | Pre-Reset Value | Post-Reset Value |
|---|---|---|
| Engine (Spec) | 600 | 600 |
| Gearbox | 1552 | 248 |
| Brakes | 1158 | 232 |
| Front Wing | 450 | 450 |
| Suspension | 651 | 200 |
| Rear Wing | 848 | 212 |
The gearbox rating would trigger a reset, however the front wing is below the minimum value so it wouldn't get reset. The other parts are reset to around 200, with some variation.