I didn't quite believe that a handheld version of an older F1 game could be much fun, or faithful to the sport, but for the most part, I was wrong. Everything from the 2002 F1 season is represented here. All the drivers and circuits are here. Practice is absent, but qualification is present. Instead of a time limit for qualification, you have preset number of laps to grab pole position. Before I had started the game, I had oddly assumed that this was going to be a top down racer. This is not the case. The "camera" is placed behind the car like Pole Position or Outrun. The game has a similar colorful art style, which is nice for the small screen you will probably be playing on.
The gameplay is reasonable. You will have to pay attention to how much fuel you have and how much your tires are wearing down. Pitting at the right time can make the difference between first and last place. The racing itself is unbalanced. If you get yourself into first place, you only have to worry about taking turns at the appropriate speed. Thankfully, you are aided through turns by the game. You still have to press the direction to fully pass through the turn, but the game only punishes you if you are going too fast. If you are not in first place, however, the limited draw distance will most assuredly cause you to crash into a car that wasn't there a split second ago. Your best bet is to get in front at the beginning if you hadn't already attained pole position in qualification. There is an indicator that you are going to fast as you go into a corner, but you will most likely be looking at the mini-map to know what direction and speed you should be taking into the turn. Considering the small screen you are playing on, an arrow with the speed indicator would have been more helpful. On the positive side, all the circuits are accurate to the real ones, albeit flat. It does rain, which makes for a nice race dynamic.
There are plenty of other (better) options for you to take if you want to satisfy your F1 racing needs, but if you can only play on a GBA, this ain't that bad.