Very addictive
The controls are easy to mange so you can concentrate on driving, overtaking/defending and race strategy.
By race strategy, I mean managing your tires, timing your pit stops and balancing speed and fuel consumption to take home the checkered flag.
Unlike F1 2010, the AI difficulty level has a middle ground, a beginner can feel like he is just as immerse as a someone on the expert difficulty, and the person who's skill level is in the middle of those two extremes doesn't feel forgotten, he is also well accounted for.
The new game embraces the new rules of the 2011 season, the biggest game changes that give you a serious edge on speed include the Pirreli tires and, most importantly, KERS and DRS.
Those are very big factors, you have to manage your KERS throughout the lap as you only have 6.7 seconds of extra speed, you also have to keep in mind that KERS may also have to be used to defend or attack, that in itself is a huge game changer, extra speed to attack, extra speed to defend.
DRS, during the actual race doesn't require a strategy, you might have only one or two DRS zones, however, you do have to manage it in qualifying. You are allowed to use it whenever your want, but using it in the bends will result you losing your back end and going for a spin, ruining your lap and there is always a chance of wrecking your car on other cars or the walls.
Tire wear is an interesting factor in the world of F1, you can truly feel the loss of grip after you've given a set of super-softs the beans in qualifying, and its not just when you use the softest compound in the part of the race weekend that eats up the tires that you feel the difference, mediums after fifteen or so laps begin to fell slippery but you don't fall off the "cliff" until the twenty/twenty-three
lap mark, softs however may only last five or ten laps if you're careful.
The damage factor also brings some spice to the race, you may have low damage such as a chip off the front wing or big damage such as the whole wing coming off or a tire puncture which will result in you having to go in for a forced pit stop, a big crash might even result in you having to retire from the race. The damage is actually felt in the handling, if, for instance, the front wing come off, you feel the under steer growing in the corners and over all handling going down since the object that is causing the wind to shape itself over the car, creating down force, is gone.
You do, however, get to correct your mistakes, the flashback system enables you to go back to the point of error and correct your mistake or mistakes.
In all this is a seriously good game, Codemasters have really nailed it this time round.