Codemasters nailed their first attempt at the F1 series with astounding detail and good playability.
That said, it has surprising depth. Short, medium or long career modes in which you answer questions in a press conference to establish the difficulty of the AI, and your career path. Opt for the long career (7 years) and you will find yourself starting in one of the low teams in F1, like HRT, Lotus or Virgin.
Your objectives scale depending on your performance and your team. At the lower levels, getting a position of 20th or maybe 18th is considered a good result. This makes the game adaptable while retaining the realism. HRT doesn't compete with Red Bull, so expecting you to in a game isn't fair.
During the press conference you also establish the difficulty of the AI. This game struggled with AI but after the patch was released, it got a lot better. AI yield when you're on a hot lap during practice and qualifying,
During your season you learn about tech challenges that add increases to your car's performance during the year. This is also realistic, although the one drawback is that performance increases don't carry over to the next season, which is unfortunate.
The racing depth is also surprisingly good. The track has variable grip levels depending on the time of the race, the amount of rubber on the line, and the temperature. Also, post-patch, fuel loads change and lap times, especially the AI's, will increase over the duration of the race, as opposed to qualifying. This makes tire choice and pit strategy more important, especially on harder AI levels and over longer races.
The one drawback to the game is the easy damage model. While it's understandable at the lower levels, hitting a wall and being able to make it back to the pits just for a new wing is far too arcade to match the higher difficulty levels.
The track detail is great too. While many may overlook it, curb height varies from track to track and corner to corner. Try to run up a corner at the wrong track because you're off the line, and you most likely will spin the car on the exit due to the height. This is something that is truly amazing, and isn't given credit. Staying true to the actual line and racing clean is extremely rewarding in this game and mimics real life.
The drawback is definitely online racing. The sprint mode, which is 3 laps at a random track with arcade physics, no fuel simulation, and equal car performance is the default mode, and usually has the most racers. The problem is that everyone seems to have never played once they start online. People routinely brake far too late into corners and the first 1-2 turns end up into a pile up with leaders being fishtailed by trailing racers. What is worse is that the damage done in these usually only hurts those in front, while the rammers get away with a capable car. The flag system also falls short and doesn't kick players fast enough to keep them out of these types of races.
Overall though, a great game.