Codemasters has officially announced its new F1 Online – The Game which is a new free-to-play browser that is based game/management simulator based on the Formula 1 racing series. It will not arrive till some time during the 1st quarter of 2012.

F1 Online will allow players to race and create a new fictional team or race as their favorite team from the F1 series. The game will offer a full-scale representation of the entire F1 World Championship, including all of the events/tracks from the real series.

The game will allow full team management and development functionality which add to the full feel of the series and give the ability to guide and control the mid-pack and back-pack teams in an effort to manage them to victory.

This free-to-play offering is in addition to the actual console releases of the game; and while some elements might be the same, at the same time they can be very different. The free-to-play version isn’t looking to take away from what the company has been able to achieve with the console releases and it is certainly not a direct replacement for the console releases. From what we have been able to gather, the console and PC releases will still be the best version of the game that you can play, but elements of the free-to-play version still make it a welcomed addition.