The premiere mode of the game is called "Grand Prix" which includes five distinct modes of gameplay including: a full championship season with all the 17 rounds of the 2001 season that includes the Practice and Qualifying sessions along with the Race itself, a single race weekend, a custom championship where the player chooses how many rounds he/she chooses to compete, a teammate challenge where the player must defeat every teammate in all the 11 teams, and a domination mode where the player must win every round of the championship without conceding defeat.

Such training includes: practice race starts, driving the car with manual gears, learning how to drive in changeable conditions such as rain, the handling of various types of corners such as a Chicane, how to deal with various types of damage sustained to the car and practice pit stops for the player to find out the time it takes to get into the pit lane to take on fuel and new tires before returning to the circuit.

[3] Other features in the game are Team Radio, which helps the player with feedback from the driver's race engineer, a replay mode, which allows anyone to go back and view key moments within a limited amount of time, the inclusion of the official FIA rules and regulations, and the ability of all the cars to be fine-tuned as in previous games such as F1 2000.

[5] One major problem discovered upon release was that the graphics on the PC version would become distorted if newer computer drivers were used, thus rendering the game unplayable.

[6] EA Sports released a patch to combat the graphics issue along with fixes in compatibility in video cards.

On 25 July another event called Camp EA 2001 held at Redwood Shores featured all of the latest games including F1 2001 on display.

The game included the songs Sunstroke, The Drive Home and a remix of Nagasaki Badger by Chicane which are played on the main menu screens.

[14] Peer Schneieder of IGN called the Xbox version "a barely enhanced but still enjoyable Formula One racing experience".