Poor old Mansell, eh? There he was, trying to beat the Brazilian chap, when he loses his brakes and spins off the track with all the grace of a hippo with the trots. To cap it all, Senna lets his learn mate, Berger, win the race. Ha! Anyway, here's a chance to get your own back.

What we have here is a menu-driven game. That means that the computer decides what to do. So there s no dodging and a-diving on the track, no gears, no accelerators and no steering. What you have instead is a plethora of decisions to make and a few keys to press, making the faithful old joystick a tad redundant.

All the Grand Prix racers have been reduced to mere numbers and then shoved rudely onto this cassette. Instead of getting to guide Mansell or Warwick to the championship, you're lumbered with a thoroughly second rate driver called (of all things) J Smith. Such originality, such daring, such crap.

The first thing you've got to do is lavish some dosh on your motor. This includes paying out for mechanics, an engine (the YS team feel that this one's quite important), steering, power, fuel and travel costs. Sorted all that out, pick some tyres and zip into a race.

Races usually follow the same pattern - Mansell streaks into the lead, Senna sits one second behind him and the rest of us knock around in the pit lane. Meanwhile, the mechanics inform us that we obviously had cowboys in last time the car was repaired and that these repairs are likely to cost us as much as a 'pony'.

Anyway, it's all terribly dull. The most exciting moment is that rare second when your crap car manages to knock Boutson into 10th place. The moment you (or rather the computer decides to) attempt to overtake him he whacks his car into reverse and performs an old rural two finger salute. You then perform a daring slip-stream manoeuvre which leaves the chap looking decidedly stupid.

The idea of the game is to make loads of dosh and win the Championship. If you get bored of racing you can always try betting. Stick your dash on Mansell or Senna and you can't go wrong. Right, on with the race preparation: anyone know what the AA's number is?

Label: Challenge
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Big Al Dykes

We've all heard of Nigel Mansell and Ricardo Patresi but who's ever heard of J. Smith?

Well, rest assured you soon will 'cos he's coming out of the chicane and vrooming his way right to the top of the Grand Prix Challenge world championship leaderboard like a man with a turbo boosted botty on a collision course with destiny.

Trying to organise a Formula One race team isn't the easiest task in the world. It's an expensive business, especially if you re not winning any races, but then again if you can win you shouldn't play. Grand Prix Challenge involves joining a formula one racing team, getting sponsorship, kitting out your car, managing the engineers, betting on the outcome and finally getting down to the business of racing. As a simulation you don actually control the car but during the race you still have to make management decisions on how aggressively you drive and when to have a tyre changing or engine modifying pit slop. All these factors are interconnected (aggressive driving wears down tyres faster etc.) and the game is absorbing from start to finish.

Graphics are good, indeed better than some so called 'realistic' racing games but the most impressive thing about Grand Prix Challenge is the menu driven control procedure, each option is logically activated by pressing the first letter of it's title, it's smoother than Garfy scoping babes and is super to use. Overall this game grabbed the interest of the entire SU Crew, recently exiled to planet Gastro 5, and is zhoo zruwk d orrn dw.

GARTH: Simulations are normally best suited to late night candle-burning or boring Sunday afternoons but if you're going to play Grand Prix Challenge I would suggest having lots of time available. It'll keep you at your keyboard for a long time.