It starred American Indy car driver Michael Andretti, and featured the full sixteen-race schedule of the FIA Formula One World Championship circuit (though Andretti himself would only compete in Formula One in the 1993 season).
It was the first NES racing game to feature an entire field of real-life drivers (although all but Andretti had pseudonyms), and rather accurately depicted the sixteen circuits on the Formula One schedule.
When multiple cars were on the track, the game featured no direct interaction between vehicles.
All of the competitors' machines behaved in a ghost-like manner, and could be driven through and occupy the same space as others.
Upon entering the Grand Prix mode, the player registers a name and begins at level 1.
However, elapsed seconds in the pit area are included in the respective lap time.
If the player does not qualify, they must sit out the race, and instead watch it through the perspective of the featured driver.
The race begins from a standing start and runs a specific number of laps, depending upon the length of the circuit.
The top half of the screen features a map of the circuit, and the position of all four cars represented by icons.
For scoring the most points in Level 9, the player is declared the World Champion, wins the game overall, and a special screen is displayed.
Andretti and Nintendo released this game two years later for a North American audience.
The top half of the screen featured a map of the circuit with the player's car represented by an icon as it went around.
Upon selecting the course, Michael Andretti would come on the screen and give background and advice about driving the circuit.
Instead of a map of the circuit, a graph in the middle of the screen depicted the lap length and the relative distance between the two opponents.