Why the choice of wheels determines your performance

Yet the real­i­ty on the vir­tu­al track quick­ly catch­es up with many dri­vers. Any­one try­ing to mas­ter a ral­ly stage with a GT or For­mu­la wheel, or ini­ti­ate a drift in a road car, sud­den­ly finds them­selves fight­ing their hard­ware more than the clock. The shape of a steer­ing wheel is not an aes­thet­ic gim­mick. It is pure physics and ergonom­ics.

At SimUl­ti­mate, we want to dive deep into the sub­ject today and explain why the right “tool” for each dis­ci­pline is cru­cial, and how the shape of the rim influ­ences your dri­ving behav­ior, your mus­cle mem­o­ry, and even your per­cep­tion of force feed­back.

The Physics of Round: Why the Clas­sic Is Unbeat­able
Let’s start with the often under­es­ti­mat­ed clas­sic round wheel. In an era where many rigs look like space­ship cock­pits, a sim­ple round leather wheel almost seems anti­quat­ed. But that impres­sion is high­ly mis­lead­ing. For cer­tain vehi­cle class­es and dri­ving styles, the cir­cu­lar shape is phys­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary.

To under­stand this, we need to look at steer­ing ratios. In road cars, his­toric race cars, drift­ing, and ral­ly­ing, we work with large steer­ing angles – often 900 to 1080 degrees lock-to-lock. This means the driver’s hands are con­stant­ly mov­ing. Tech­niques such as hand-over-hand steer­ing or allow­ing the wheel to slide through open palms (“let­ting the wheel spin”) are essen­tial to catch the car.

A round rim pro­vides a homo­ge­neous, unin­ter­rupt­ed grip­ping sur­face. No mat­ter at what angle the car sits rel­a­tive to the road, you will always intu­itive­ly find grip. Any­one who has tried to catch a slid­ing ral­ly car with a rec­tan­gu­lar For­mu­la wheel knows the painful prob­lem: the moment you need to re-grip, you grab into thin air. Worse still, when the steer­ing snaps back quick­ly, the pro­trud­ing grips of an angu­lar wheel can strike thumbs or wrists. With the forces of a mod­ern direct-dri­ve base, this presents a real risk of injury.

For sim­u­lat­ing road cars, drift events, or the wild chase over grav­el stages, a round wheel is there­fore not just an option but an ergonom­ic neces­si­ty. It enables the “flow” these dis­ci­plines demand.

The For­mu­la Wheel: Pre­ci­sion Through Restric­tion
But why do flat-bot­tom or open-top wheels (butterfly/Formula style) dom­i­nate mod­ern motor­sport? The answer lies in spe­cial­iza­tion. In mod­ern GT3, LMP, or For­mu­la cars, steer­ing is extreme­ly direct. The driver’s work­ing range is usu­al­ly lim­it­ed to a max­i­mum of 180 to 270 degrees in either direc­tion. Re-grip­ping is nei­ther intend­ed nor tech­ni­cal­ly nec­es­sary. The hands remain per­ma­nent­ly in the “quar­ter-to-three” posi­tion.

The shape of these wheels is designed to “lock” the dri­ver into this ide­al posi­tion. Ergonom­ic con­tours force the hands into the per­fect pos­ture. This brings mas­sive advan­tages in pre­ci­sion: since the hand posi­tion rel­a­tive to the wheel nev­er changes, the dri­ver devel­ops extreme­ly pre­cise mus­cle mem­o­ry. Every mil­lime­ter of steer­ing input is exe­cut­ed exact­ly the same way each time. In addi­tion, all vital con­trols – from brake bias to trac­tion con­trol – remain with­in thumb reach at all times. You oper­ate the vehi­cle sys­tems with­out ever loos­en­ing your firm grip.

Anoth­er tech­ni­cal aspect is diam­e­ter. For­mu­la wheels are often small­er (approx. 280–300 mm) than round wheels (approx. 320–350 mm). The phys­i­cal law of lever­age ensures that with a small­er diam­e­ter, the base’s force feed­back feels stronger, more imme­di­ate, and more detailed. Fine sur­face irreg­u­lar­i­ties and tire behav­ior are trans­mit­ted more clear­ly, which is cru­cial when chas­ing the last tenths of a sec­ond on smooth asphalt.

Vis­i­bil­i­ty also plays a role: in low seat­ing posi­tions, a large round upper rim would often obstruct the view of the hori­zon or dash­board. Cut­ting off the upper sec­tion solves this prob­lem ele­gant­ly.

Deep Dish: The Search for Ana­log Immer­sion
There is a third cat­e­go­ry often over­looked by begin­ners but high­ly val­ued by enthu­si­asts: dished steer­ing wheels (deep dish). These orig­i­nat­ed in ral­ly and tour­ing car rac­ing from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Here, the rim is strong­ly off­set for­ward rel­a­tive to the hub. Mount­ing such a wheel changes the entire ergonom­ics of the rig. The rim moves clos­er to the driver’s upper body, alter­ing elbow angles and often allow­ing bet­ter vehi­cle con­trol dur­ing large steer­ing move­ments with­out hav­ing to repo­si­tion the base itself.

These wheels typ­i­cal­ly have no flat bot­tom and very few but­tons. They con­vey a raw, ana­log dri­ving feel. Any­one who enjoys his­toric tour­ing cars, clas­sic road cars in Asset­to Cor­sa, or Dirt Ral­ly will often find the high­est lev­el of immer­sion here. It feels mechan­i­cal and “real,” far removed from the com­put­er aes­thet­ic of mod­ern GT wheels. A small detail like the usu­al­ly yel­low or red mark­er at the 12 o’clock posi­tion serves as an impor­tant visu­al ref­er­ence in the chaos of a drift.

The Mate­r­i­al Dilem­ma: Alcan­tara vs. Every­day Use
One point often over­looked when mak­ing a pur­chase deci­sion is mate­r­i­al choice. Many high-end wheels come wrapped in Alcan­tara or suede to imi­tate the look of real race cars. This offers excel­lent grip and feels pre­mi­um – but only under one con­di­tion: you must wear gloves.

With­out gloves, sweat and skin oils attack the sen­si­tive mate­r­i­al in a very short time. The fibers clump togeth­er, the wheel becomes smooth, greasy, and unat­trac­tive. More­over, suede para­dox­i­cal­ly pro­vides less grip on bare skin than it does with prop­er rac­ing gloves.

You have to ask your­self hon­est­ly: how “casu­al” do you want your hob­by to be? Any­one who just wants to relax for 30 min­utes in the evening often finds putting on gloves to be a bar­ri­er. Gloves also make it con­sid­er­ably hard­er to use key­boards, smart­phones, or touch­screens on the rig. If com­fort is your pri­or­i­ty, high-qual­i­ty smooth leather or spe­cial rub­ber com­pounds are often the bet­ter choice. How­ev­er, those chas­ing the last ounce of real­ism will not get around Alcan­tara and gloves – just like Lewis Hamil­ton.

The Pad­dle Shifter Issue
Final­ly, a tech­ni­cal detail that often only becomes appar­ent dur­ing use: pad­dle shifter acces­si­bil­i­ty. With a For­mu­la wheel, where the hands are fixed in place, the pad­dles always sit per­fect­ly behind the fin­gers.

How­ev­er, when dri­ving ral­ly with a round wheel and rotat­ing the wheel 180 degrees, the pad­dles sud­den­ly end up on the wrong side or upside down. In the heat of a hair­pin, intu­itive­ly shift­ing up or down becomes a gam­ble. For this rea­son, real ral­ly cars often use a fixed sequen­tial shifter or a pad­dle that does not rotate with the wheel. Any­one plan­ning to dri­ve a lot of ral­ly or drift should there­fore bud­get not only for the wheel but also for a sep­a­rate shifter, as wheel-mount­ed pad­dles often become use­less in these dis­ci­plines.

The analy­sis clear­ly shows: there is no sin­gle per­fect steer­ing wheel for every sit­u­a­tion. Try­ing to do every­thing with a For­mu­la wheel sac­ri­fices con­trol in ral­ly and drift. Own­ing only a large round wheel means los­ing pre­ci­sion and feed­back detail in for­mu­la cars. Thanks to the wide­spread adop­tion of mod­ern quick-release sys­tems, the most pro­fes­sion­al solu­tion today is often diver­si­fi­ca­tion. A more afford­able round rim for wild, dynam­ic dis­ci­plines and a pre­cise, small­er For­mu­la or GT wheel for clean cir­cuit com­pe­ti­tion.

Our advice at SimUl­ti­mate: Detach your­self from pure­ly visu­al pur­chas­ing deci­sions. Ana­lyze which sim­u­la­tions you tru­ly dri­ve and choose the tool that bio­me­chan­i­cal­ly fits the task. Your lap times – and your wrists – will thank you.