The Formula 1 licence must be a valuable one for the gaming industry. A decent Grand Prix sim has the potential to tick so many boxes.

For the causal gamer, there's the foot-down racing element. For the more technically involved – it sounds so much better than "geek" – there's the engineering potential, the constant tweaking of your car to squeeze the maximum performance or the repetitive nature of practice laps / qualifying to perfect your racing line.

More in-depth games are planned for the major consoles in March 2010. Until then, the licence only benefits Wii owners and an unexpected quarter of the gaming world: PSP owners. As it happens, the PSP interpretation – while not advised for commuting – is a solid game and Codemasters probably deserves a pat on the back for balancing pick-up-and-playability and the more challenging aspects the subject, and its fans, deserve.

On the downside, this means that F1 2009 for the PSP is not a full simulation. There is no opportunity to change brakes or steering columns etc, to milk maximum performance from your car. The vehicle is what it is, and what it is, is a classic arcade style racer.

That's not to say it's easy. Those seeking a greater challenge can turn off the racing assists, or add vehicle damage, fuel use and tyre wear, driver penalties, increase the opponents' skill, make weather conditions variable or even switch on a "component failure" option, which can see you seconds from home before experiencing a full loss of power and the like.

The licence means that all details of the 2009 season are in place, from the teams to a choice of 20 drivers and the Grand Prix tracks. These you will get to know very well, particularly if you play the three-season long Career mode and play it properly. Before you race, you can take your driver and car out for two sessions of Friday practice, a Saturday practice and up to three Qualifying rounds before you go head-to-head with your competitors. And you can repeat that for every one of the 17 tracks, from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi.

Can't be bothered with all of that? Not to worry. You can also jump straight into a race. You can also race a single season Championship and/or try to complete 75 challenges, which adds considerable depth to this decent value package.

Each track conveniently comes with a pre-determined racing line and hints on where to brake. Too easy? Not a bit of it. You try holding it. Steering, both with the D-pad and the PSP's analogue joystick, is punishingly sensitive (and immensely Tube unfriendly). Of course, that makes it all the more satisfying when you eventually get to grips with it.

Whether there's enough here to please the hardcore F1 nut is debatable, and load times – as is so often the case with the PSP – are slow. But there's a genuine sense of speed to the races, it looks good on the little screen, and there's enough variety to engage most casual players and GP fans.