Horrible controls and a lack of modes ruin this game
In F1 2009 the only way to control the car is with the accelerometer. That's right, no analog or push steering. It would be fine if the accelerometer actually worked okay but it is not optimized well at all. It is near impossible to get anything near a good lap with the car going wildly across the track. Add to this the lack of an auto accelerate and you've got an extremely hard game.
Second is the modes. There are only 2 modes, time trial and endurance. None of these have you racing another car. Time Trial is self explanatory and endurance mode is 3 or 5 laps around the circuit where the times are averaged out. This is unacceptable in a racing game, as you would expect actual racing to be going on.
Thirdly you will be going off the track alot in this game. This is made even worse by the ridiculous penalties given for cutting a corner which are also extremely inconsitent. Sometimes cutting a bit of a corner can lead to the lap being disqualified and sometimes cutting a big chunk of a corner leads to nothing. When combined with the over sensitive controls, these make just completing a lap very hard
On the plus side all the cars and all the tracks from the 2009 season are there but if there practically unplayable that's no use.
Overall F1 2009 is an extremely disappointing game that you shouldn't waste you money on unless you are an extreme F1 fan who just wants to race the circuits.