The added F2 value in F1's latest game

"I'm sure one of the larger teams would love to have you. As a development driver," mocks your Formula 2 rival, hoping to goad you into a virtual antagonistic relationship on your path to Formula 1. Therein lies the inherent challenge of F2's presence in the upcoming F1 2019 title - it's not just about tooling around in the junior category, it's about the challenge to reach the top tier.

Developer Codemasters has analysed how players have responded to its 10-year career mode, keeping track of when they tend to lose interest and then trying to encourage them to maintain momentum to the end of the cycle. Introduced in the 2016 game, the mode has been tweaked in subsequent versions but still feels quite team-focused, so F2's inclusion should give the gamer a greater incentive to persist by enabling them to develop their driver as well as their cars.

At launch there will only be the 2018 season available before a free update - expected to be released sometime after launch - adds the current campaign and the tantalising prospect of taking F2 to the online multiplayer battlefield. But this isn't just a case of bolting on F2 to keep a yearly game series fresh, as game director Lee Mather explains at the first play of F1 2019 in Hamburg.

"Something we've always wanted to try and do is build that driver narrative and journey into F1," Mather explains. "With the inclusion of F2, we have the perfect opportunity. We wanted to create a bit of a narrative around it. In F1 2019 the journey starts in F2, you choose a team and a driver academy. F1 teams take their drivers through academies and that's something that's going to direct your journey through the rest of your career."

Players of EA Sports' FIFA series will immediately link F1's attempt at a 'story mode' to The Journey, FIFA's often hackneyed and cliche-ridden journey through which protagonist Alex Hunter climbs the ranks to footballing stardom. It was innovative on its first appearance, but quickly became insipid as the player was funnelled down a predetermined path.

This is exactly what Codemasters is trying to avoid, so it builds the narrative around your own actions by putting the player into three scenarios in which your decisions define the persona of your driver. Those decisions influence the relationship you have with two fictional rivals in F2 - one who tends to be abrasive, while the other is of a more neutral disposition.

In a short clip played to the assembled media, first-person cutscenes showed interactions with the two fictional rivals, including 'zingers' such as: "You're unbelievable", "that's the dirtiest driving I've ever seen" and "next time the team gives you a request, follow it".

"Something we've always been more cautious of is that we didn't want it to be scripted in any way and that it had to come from what the player does," says Mather.

"The initial event is something that happened and you have to deal with it. Are you going to be the team player or not? And then obviously you have a more antagonistic guy who is going to egg you on, making the nasty remarks in the cutscenes.

"What then derives the outcome is what you've done on the track. So, there's no, 'I can do this' and the outcome is the same. Whatever you do impacts on it."

It was immediately clear comments that adding F2 was like building another game inside F1 2019 were accurate

The idea is that F2 becomes the formation of a career rivalry - building on last year's team-mate head-to-head points-scoring. When you graduate into F1, the made-up F2 rivals follow you into F1 - and continue to play a key part in your narrative. This can come through interviews with the press, in which your rival can slate or praise you, and they can even retire further down the line and vacate their F1 seat (so, for example, Sebastian Vettel might be displaced from Ferrari by your rival and then return when they leave). But beyond your rivalry, your overall performance in F2 can impact the contracts you are able to ask for once you graduate into F1.

F2's storyline plays into the rivalry theme of the wider F1 2019 game, highlighted by the Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna exclusive content - which feels like an underwhelming rehash of the classic car challenges upon first experience - and Mathers explains to Autosport that F2 had to play a "meaningful" part in the career mode.

"Your performance doesn't only impact on the rivalry, but also the quality of the contract you get offered. You always get the opportunity to go to any teams, because we never want to block out the ability to go to Ferrari.

"But the requirements they have of you as a driver will be different so we always wanted to not put too much of a barrier of entry, but to put something in that is exciting and engaging and something that generates talk when you get into F1. And that's what you get through the F2 series.

"You get four [actually three in George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon] drivers who have come through this year, there's a great story there. It's great to see young drivers and that's the experience we want the player to have."

Autosport was able to play through an F2 weekend - including practice, qualifying and the feature and sprint races, and it was immediately clear Mather's comment - that F2 was like building another game inside F1 2019 - was accurate.

On reaching the first corner, applying the time-tested F1 approach to braking and picking up the power out of a corner proved problematic as the lower downforce meant the car was inches from pitching into a spin - demonstrating how a player has to apply a differing approach to braking and acceleration.

Wheel-to-wheel racing was just as frantic, if not more so than the F1 version, although the AI's lingering over-aggression and tendency to perform questionable defending is still highly noticeable on the opening lap.

"Obviously, we have had to completely build the drivers and the cars, the physics and the set-ups for the cars, which is vastly different," Mather explains. "The rule sets are very different too. The qualifying format is very different to Formula 1 and those are things we've had to implement because we're going to do Formula 2 thoroughly."

Those rule sets throw up a different way of thinking compared with F1 modes, switching from a mindset of winning every race to how best to achieve the largest points haul across the two races. This places a real premium on race management and when to engage in overtaking attempts.

Surely this will be the theme of any competitive online racing with the F2 cars, and Codemasters has again poured resources into its multiplayer - although Mather points out that online is an ongoing process, rather than stop-start between games.

Codemasters shied away from the term "online first", but it's hard to argue that it hasn't made a step in that direction. Regular online players will notice their home menu will begin to centre on online as the programme notices playing habits, and there's even a dedicated F1 Esports Series landing page to tempt more involvement from players for its third season.

Takeaway items include the expansion of the events system into three distinct elements: the traditional scenario-based challenges (such as attempting to recover to a position after early damage) and two new Grand Prix and Classic Grand Prix events. These take place over the week, beginning with practice sessions, and then later in the week a qualifying session helps inform the pool of players you will race against.

There's also expected to be an exciting change to highlights, in which an automated process will create a one-minute reel of key moments in your gaming experience that can be shared.

Codemasters has been able to expand its team in the last year and has opened a new Birmingham base as it passes 10 years with the F1 license

Customisation is central to online play this year, matching the rise of Esports in which players are building profiles and followings outside the virtual world. While the F1 teams have their own cars and liveries for their official Esports teams, there is a vast community of fan-run leagues and teams - many becoming increasingly professional - which needed the ability to carve out an identity recognisable to those racing in the field or watching on streams.

"You'll be rewarded with points you can spend in-game on things like driver customisation," says Mather. "Something else we wanted to do was really reward players for taking part".

"Personalisation is important, you see teams with their own identity so it might be everyone in a team runs the same livery and has the same colours but maybe differentiate themselves with the helmet, suit and gloves," said Mather. "There's a lot of nice things that are very personal to a driver.

"But it's that car [customisation] for the first time because it's such a canvas to show some cool liveries, and you'll see some of them are beautiful."

But that goes beyond some striking liveries. Those running their own leagues now have greater freedom to create their own banners and trophies - but with more meaningful tools such as the new-for-2019 "attendance rating", another asset in league-building decisions and the voting system that means things such as a fixed race slot can be changed to another day or time if there's enough support.

"We see huge engagement from people in leagues so we wanted to make it more accessible, not just for the wider community, but for the guys running it to have some extra control," says Mather.

"You can create a league and set it up to run robotically at a set time or instigate it yourself when you're there. It can be public or private, and [you can] make the league you want or with people in your circuit of racing friends.

"It requires some management, so you can be owner or admin and add admins. People's lives get in the way of a love of motorsport so you can always put forward a change to the league."

It's also impossible to discuss such a wider change in philosophy towards online without recognising the community angst towards online stability and bugs that have appeared in the game series. Online was not a playable part of the first F1 2019 reveal, but crucially Codemasters has been able to expand its team in the last year and has opened a new Birmingham base as it passes 10 years with the F1 license - so the structure is in place to solve gripes.

The F1 game series has enjoyed a new lease of life in recent years and the inclusion of F2 is the biggest update to the annual series in recent memory. With a wealth of classic cars still on tap and a revised multiplayer that reflects its community, F1 2019 is likely to be a daunting benchmark to surpass in 2020. Perhaps FIA Formula 3 could help solve that...