Off-Season is the phase of time when Drivers and Staff normally change teams, or announce their retirements. In Motorsport Manager, this starts with rumours reported throughout the season and officially start a day after the last race in late November. The design of next season's car takes place during this time. It ends with winter testing to start the build up for the first race of a new season.
Off-Season Process[]
The day the season ends, an email will be sent reminding you contracts are running down, if someone's contract ends at the end of the year. 2 Days later, the GMA president will give out prize money, announce the series Manager & Driver of the season, and offer promotion to the champions of the ERS & APS. The player or AI may turn down the GMA president's offer, and if they do, the last placed team of the higher series will not be relegated. The GMA will then officially announce the rule changes to the player's respective series. The same day, some drivers will announce their retirements. The next day, many drivers will be bought out of their contracts and change teams.
2 weeks after the last race, Teams will receive the money they saved to build next years car and start the design process. After choosing the suppliers for the base chassis of the car, teams will then start officially building their cars. Dilemmas prompt the opportunity to add more base stats to the chassis. In mid February, you will be asked to design the livery. Finally, on March 1st, Pre-season testing will end the off season, allowing teams to start designing new parts to their cars.
Driver/Staff Market[]
Although driver contracts technically end with the calendar year, contracts that are due to end are free to "break" a week after the season ends and the pre-season officially starts with the car design. The driver/staff contract off-season can roughly be described in the following phases.
- Mid-Season rumors that a driver will leave their team at the end of the year.
- Three days after the Final Race, some drivers choose to quickly announce their retirements. They may break their contract in the process.
- Drivers/Staff may be bought out of their contracts by A.I. teams, possibly replacing already contracted drivers/staff.
- Unemployed drivers slowly get contracted by teams.
- Older drivers that haven't decided to retire, do so as late as the start of the new calendar year.
- New Drivers appear on the market to replace the retired drivers.
The Staff market is not nearly as competitive as the driver market, and is not subject to as many news reports and late changes. There is also an abundance of Engineers & Mechanics.