The realism in this game makes even a far dated F1 season still as pure as how F1 is meant to be.
By default, the game features the 2001 FIA Formula one world championship. Even if this season was far done, the excitement still lives on in the game. Today's mods may provide the more updated features within the cars and drivers, but even so it's still just as exciting when you race 22 of the world's best drivers on some of the world's toughest tracks.
You can set your race lengths as long as you can take, but for maximum fun, you may want to set it at 100% distance. You might not feel like taking a race this long, but you don't have to worry about staying right on your seat for over one and a half hours because you can save right in the middle of the race if you feel like exiting for a while. This is what's missing in other F1 games and in most racing games where in you have to drive continuously to the finish. This will also give you the complete feeling of just how exhausting a single F1 race can actually be.
The difficulty settings can be changed as well depending on your desires. As the difficulty gets higher, your opponents will not only tend to be quicker but also more agressive which adds on with the racing excitement. That means that you may find the AI colliding on you or on each other or just f......ing themselves up on the track and end up on the gravel trap.
Other comments? On the good side: Great graphics even on medium settings, realistic damage, all teams having pit crew members instead of just your team having them.
On the bad side: Complicated saves (the need to delete unwanted save files using the utilities rather than overwriting in different modes), freezing marshalls and pit crews after viewing short replays, unscalable pit stops for shorter race distances.