Controller → Wheel: First Day Reality Check And help needed

[Lightpilgrim]

Hi everyone,

The moment has finally come for me to move from a controller to a wheel, and I wanted to share my first real experience with this transition — and ask for advice from those who have already been through it.

My current setup:
• Fanatec ClubSport DD+ (Gran Turismo DD Extreme base)
• Fanatec ClubSport Steering Wheel Formula V2.5
• SimNet SP2 Pro pedals

Today was my first proper day on the rig. The first laps were honestly chaos — I drove like a monkey, everything felt unnatural, and I had to spend time calibrating and adjusting just to get a usable baseline.

Once things felt somewhat right, I jumped into Circuit Experience at Dragon Trail to practice fundamentals. After maybe five laps I got gold, and after more practice I ended up around 2.2 seconds faster than the gold target. Out of curiosity, I switched back to controller and after about 10 laps I matched almost the exact same lap time. So on Dragon Trail, wheel vs controller feels basically equal — maybe a tenth either way.

Then came the reality check.

I went into the current Spa time trial with the Porsche 911 GT3. My controller lap is around 2:18.7 (only one real session so far), roughly under 2% off top times — so reasonably representative of my current pace.

On the wheel, however, I am about four seconds slower. I struggle to put a lap together, and the car feels much harder to rotate and place precisely.

What stands out most is turning and rotation. Example: Turn 1 at Spa — heavy braking, strong rotation to the right, then quick throttle. On controller I can rotate the car naturally and efficiently; on the wheel I feel like I need much more movement and effort to achieve the same rotation.

My main question is specifically about settings and setup:
• Are there wheel or in-game settings that can make rotation easier and more responsive, closer to how quickly a controller reacts?
• Which settings should I focus on first (FFB strength, steering angle / SEN, sensitivity, NDP/NFR, in-game force feedback, etc.) if the car feels heavy to rotate?
• How do you tune the wheel so it’s easier to place the car precisely on corner entry and mid-corner?

Braking feels mostly fine, and acceleration is improving, but it’s clearly connected to how well I can rotate and position the car. If I can improve rotation, I know the rest will follow.

I’d really appreciate any practical setup advice from people who’ve already dialed this in.

Thanks in advance — really looking forward to learning from this community.

 

[Skinny McLean]

Bear in mind that when using a controller the game applies hidden assists; when using a wheel you’re more on your own. Instead of expecting to beat records right away give yourself some time to get used to your new equipment.

 

[The Crock]

You made an enormous leap in equipment, like a seriously monumental leap lol. For comparison, my equipment leaps were more incremental: Controller>Logi G29>Fanatec DD Pro>used Podium F1>DD Extreme for the Fullforce. An adjustment period is expected here. Going from a controller to the DD+ is wild and I commend you for the buy once/cry once attitude.

The good news is your equipment is end game already. Like already mentioned, the controller provides a lot of assistance to smooth inputs, which is now gone with a wheel. You clearly have the inherent pace.

The most significant difference is the load cell in your Simnet pedals. You'll regain all your pace when you get used to that. There's no secret wheelbase setting to make you faster. That's all on you now to get the car rotated properly and the details from a direct drive give you way more info now.

I do advise keeping Damper low, to feel the car. The weight in the wheel can be brought down further by reducing the overall FFB on the base, but I don't recommend. If you're struggling with the weight of the wheel, GT7 has an auto setup in the wheel which caps the NM to 9. I'd say use that to get used to the weight. When you do, you'll be begging for a heavier wheel, it happens to all of us.

Here's my wheelbase settings and a brief explanation:

FFB - 100 - overall strength of the wheelbase, leave at 100 and adjust in game torque downwards to have the full dynamic range of your base available to you at all times.
Sen - Auto - GT7 auto-detects the rotation angle of each car on per-car basis, leave this alone.You want a 1:1 movement between your real life actions on the wheel vs. in-game hand movements.
NDP - 12 - Natural damper, adds weight, too much and you lose detail. Too little and you get too much mechanical noise from the high frequency road effects.
NFR - 5 - Natural friction - Add simulated friction of the front tires - too much, lose details
NIN - 3 - Natural inertia - adds a simulated counter weight, too much, you guessed it, lose detail
INT - 2 - Interpolation filter - basically a smoothness filter - 1 is too rough in GT7 and 3 a tad too mushy. Raising this too high can introduce lag as well.
FEI - 100 - Force effect intensity - volume dial for the level of FFB detail. Lowering this past 70 can introduce a lot of lag in the feedback. Leave this at the highest setting to get all the information the game is trying to send you.
Fullforce - 35 - too much here and the effects get in the way of more useful FFB. You can still feel road details and curbs with this turned off. This is definitely a less is more setting despite how much people rave about it and the Logitech equivalent, TrueForce.

FOR, SPR, DPR - leave at 100, GT7 only uses the FOR settings to generate the FFB signal. Lowering this lowers the max torque your base can output, thus reducing the dynamic range.

In game torque - road cars 2-3, higher downforce cars - 4-5
Sensitivity is always 1 on direct drives, don't ever go higher, oscillations can be introduced.
Depending on the car, at around setting 7 for max torque you introduce clipping on this base.

 

[Lightpilgrim]

Thanks guys — very, very helpful. I think I understand quite a lot already, but I want to clarify a few things.

For context, most of what I know about transitioning from pad to wheel comes from listening to other people rather than personal experience, so this is all very new to me. It’s now been about 24 hours since I switched — basically one full day of driving spread across yesterday and today.

I’ve done three tracks so far.

First, I ran Dragon Trail Circuit Experience. I beat my old lap time by around 2.0–2.2 seconds on the wheel. However, when I picked up the controller again, I could match that pace, so on this track I’d say I’m currently more or less equal between pad and wheel (possibly still slightly faster on pad).

Then I moved to Kyoto Driving Park Circuit Experience with a Gr.3 car. I struggled massively at first just to reach gold. Eventually I became consistent enough to hit the target, and I’m now faster than a lap I did about six months ago — but still roughly one second slower than my best from around three months ago. So at the moment I’m about one second slower on wheel than on pad there.

Then I tried the Spa 911 GT3 time trial. Here I’m around 2.5–3 seconds slower, although I haven’t practiced enough yet and may revisit it tonight or tomorrow.

So to summarize where I am and what I’m noticing as a pattern:

At first I felt like the car simply wouldn’t rotate — like the wheel wasn’t doing anything. Now I’m starting to understand how rotation works. It feels much more physical than on pad, but I’m beginning to get it. After about 300 km of driving I’m definitely feeling fatigue, but I’m able to drive consistently.

Braking is slowly improving, and I’m beginning to understand how to rotate the car better, which feels very positive.

The biggest time loss is clearly on corner exit. Specifically:

• Corners like Turn 1 at Spa — heavy braking from high speed into a tight corner, then accelerating out — where I can lose close to a second in just that one turn.
• The final two corners at Kyoto Driving Park — similar situation, probably another 0.5–0.7 seconds lost

In general, what I struggle with most is the transition from high-speed approach → heavy braking → rotation → early acceleration. I’m very hesitant on throttle application at exit and still not comfortable with it, and this is where I’m losing most of my time.
If I can get close to my pad pace within the next two weeks, I’ll be extremely pleased. If I’m roughly equal pace in 2–4 weeks, I’ll be very happy.

Regarding settings, I now have a baseline setup that I’ll keep adjusting. Acceleration and throttle feel mostly fine. Braking still needs practice, and I also need more time to understand force feedback and how to use it properly. Thanks again for all the settings suggestions — I’ll create profiles and keep experimenting.

One final question: if anyone here is using SimNet pedals, I’d really like to ask a few more specific questions.

And overall — I’m very curious: what helped you most with learning corner exits on a wheel? Did you go through the same phase I’m going through now? Is this experience similar to yours?

 

[peniu]

In general, what I struggle with most is the transition from high-speed approach → heavy braking → rotation → early acceleration. I’m very hesitant on throttle application at exit and still not comfortable with it, and this is where I’m losing most of my time.
If I can get close to my pad pace within the next two weeks, I’ll be extremely pleased. If I’m roughly equal pace in 2–4 weeks, I’ll be very happy.

Regarding settings, I now have a baseline setup that I’ll keep adjusting. Acceleration and throttle feel mostly fine. Braking still needs practice, and I also need more time to understand force feedback and how to use it properly. Thanks again for all the settings suggestions — I’ll create profiles and keep experimenting.

One final question: if anyone here is using SimNet pedals, I’d really like to ask a few more specific questions.

And overall — I’m very curious: what helped you most with learning corner exits on a wheel? Did you go through the same phase I’m going through now? Is this experience similar to yours?

This is pretty much what I experienced - being hesitant on the throttle at corner exits. I think it's due to confidence - I had plenty of it to catch any oversteer with a controller, just a quick move of a finger and it's dealt with. It is much more effort to catch any slide on a wheel and it's more risky.

I pretty much only play online TTs now on both devices, my mileage with controller is higher, but my pace now is comparable on both. There are some combos which one or the other takes over. Oversteery cars I'd likely be faster in on controller due to above, while high speed precise corners would be easier on a wheel. As an example corner with big banking on Lago Maggiore - it's terrbily difficult to get perfect line on controller for me.

I also have Simnet pedals, there's at least a few of us in the forum here, so feel free to ask anything. What at least caught me out with them and only discovered it recently is that my settings were wrong on them - had to add some spacers to brake stack as the rod on brake doesn't have enough thread with my configuration and there was zero resistance for the first couple mm. See around 2:30 in below video to see what I mean - nut would stop at the end of thread instead of pushing on the stack.


I would not get too hung up on finding the perfect settings for the wheel - grab settings from the forum and practice - it's good to limit the variables in my opinion and build muscle memory first, only then play with the settings.

 

[Greycap]

And overall — I’m very curious: what helped you most with learning corner exits on a wheel? Did you go through the same phase I’m going through now? Is this experience similar to yours?

Nothing but a ton of practice. Back when I made the transition it took about two months to be consistently back at the same level as before. This was with GT4 and a Driving Force Pro, but I doubt it would be all that different nowadays. It sounds very familiar knowing what you should be doing but not being able to do it and losing the rear end half of the time if not more. Figuring out how to catch oversteer was by far the hardest thing for me.

But, don't get discouraged by having a hard time in the beginning while reading stories from people who switched to a wheel and immediately beat all their old times by several seconds. That simply doesn't happen, there are two possibilities - either they're lying like troopers or were so terribly hopeless with the pad that anything is an improvement. If you were already a gold level driver with the pad, like you were now and I was back in the day, there's zero chance that you can go from finger movements measured in millimetres to using both hands and feet with the same skill without a serious learning phase as they're two entirely different things. Building the muscle memory takes time.

On the subject of lap times with both options, I've been purely a wheel player since 2006 and my pad driving is every bit as rusty as you can guess from that but every now and then, perhaps once a year if even that, I try it for a few laps to see how big the difference really is. On a two minute lap it's somewhere near half a second in my case and I'm still using the right stick for throttle and brake as I never had to learn the triggers for pedals so left foot braking is out of the question. I'd say the lap time is pretty much 99% knowing what to do - the braking points, where to turn in etc. and the last 1% is executing it with the hardware you have. That 1% is one second on a 1'40 lap which just about checks out.

 

[The Crock]

Traction control was the last assist I took off precisely because of how tricky it is with a pedal in GT7. It does take a while cus too much and you're done in this game. It's definitely a struggle to tell which corner you can give it full beans and which ones you gotta be really careful on throttle application.

 

[RCKakashi14]

Thanks guys — very, very helpful. I think I understand quite a lot already, but I want to clarify a few things.

For context, most of what I know about transitioning from pad to wheel comes from listening to other people rather than personal experience, so this is all very new to me. It’s now been about 24 hours since I switched — basically one full day of driving spread across yesterday and today.

I’ve done three tracks so far.

First, I ran Dragon Trail Circuit Experience. I beat my old lap time by around 2.0–2.2 seconds on the wheel. However, when I picked up the controller again, I could match that pace, so on this track I’d say I’m currently more or less equal between pad and wheel (possibly still slightly faster on pad).

Then I moved to Kyoto Driving Park Circuit Experience with a Gr.3 car. I struggled massively at first just to reach gold. Eventually I became consistent enough to hit the target, and I’m now faster than a lap I did about six months ago — but still roughly one second slower than my best from around three months ago. So at the moment I’m about one second slower on wheel than on pad there.

Then I tried the Spa 911 GT3 time trial. Here I’m around 2.5–3 seconds slower, although I haven’t practiced enough yet and may revisit it tonight or tomorrow.

So to summarize where I am and what I’m noticing as a pattern:

At first I felt like the car simply wouldn’t rotate — like the wheel wasn’t doing anything. Now I’m starting to understand how rotation works. It feels much more physical than on pad, but I’m beginning to get it. After about 300 km of driving I’m definitely feeling fatigue, but I’m able to drive consistently.

Braking is slowly improving, and I’m beginning to understand how to rotate the car better, which feels very positive.

The biggest time loss is clearly on corner exit. Specifically:

• Corners like Turn 1 at Spa — heavy braking from high speed into a tight corner, then accelerating out — where I can lose close to a second in just that one turn.
• The final two corners at Kyoto Driving Park — similar situation, probably another 0.5–0.7 seconds lost

In general, what I struggle with most is the transition from high-speed approach → heavy braking → rotation → early acceleration. I’m very hesitant on throttle application at exit and still not comfortable with it, and this is where I’m losing most of my time.
If I can get close to my pad pace within the next two weeks, I’ll be extremely pleased. If I’m roughly equal pace in 2–4 weeks, I’ll be very happy.

Regarding settings, I now have a baseline setup that I’ll keep adjusting. Acceleration and throttle feel mostly fine. Braking still needs practice, and I also need more time to understand force feedback and how to use it properly. Thanks again for all the settings suggestions — I’ll create profiles and keep experimenting.

One final question: if anyone here is using SimNet pedals, I’d really like to ask a few more specific questions.

And overall — I’m very curious: what helped you most with learning corner exits on a wheel? Did you go through the same phase I’m going through now? Is this experience similar to yours?

Welcome to the wheel life!

Though I use an entirely different wheel, a T598, it takes me a lot of time to adjust. And despite my hectic schedule, I always find time during the day to practice, either hours or at least half an hour. Having a wheel takes total commitment. When I got a G29, at first I felt and I saw that my lap times were much slower than with a controller. But with thorough practice, I was able to lap 3 seconds faster.

A year later, I switched to a T598. Again, it's adjustment phase all over and now that I got a 488 GT3 Wheel add on, I got three seconds faster than with a G29. Same routine - hours and hours of practice, trying to find the best racing line and learning how different drivetrains work on the track.

For corner exits, TC is still off and... practice with accelerator control. Fun fact, Keisuke Takahashi from Initial D, his method is very very effective.


From here on out, you have to invest more time on practice with a wheel, especially that yours is a higher end than mine.

 

[snowman_pr]

I too moved from controller use for the entirety of GT series to wheel use in mid January. Like you I also went full in with the Logitech RS50 wheel, RS pedals, Playseat Challenge two to three weeks after already I moved to PSVR2. So yeah, lots of adjustment needed.

What I did after the requisite starting runs crashing into everything was doing hot laps with all assists on just to acclimatize myself with the wheel and building new muscle memory. Then went back to the license tests mixed with hot laps turning off assists until I regained my confidence and most importantly consistency.

Now I am faster than my controller times, run no assists at all and have gained new appreciation on pure stock road cars with comfort of sport tires. Fast and high downforce cars are another whole level with wheel yet easier to manage than simple and humble road cars, at least in my experience. Front drive cars behave as expected since for the last 15 years IRL that’s what I’ve been driving on. So real life experience have helped in this regard.

So yeah, make simple goals, focus on what you want to achieve and on to the next goal.

Happy racing!

 

[Lightpilgrim]

I too moved from controller use for the entirety of GT series to wheel use in mid January. Like you I also went full in with the Logitech RS50 wheel, RS pedals, Playseat Challenge two to three weeks after already I moved to PSVR2. So yeah, lots of adjustment needed.

What I did after the requisite starting runs crashing into everything was doing hot laps with all assists on just to acclimatize myself with the wheel and building new muscle memory. Then went back to the license tests mixed with hot laps turning off assists until I regained my confidence and most importantly consistency.

Now I am faster than my controller times, run no assists at all and have gained new appreciation on pure stock road cars with comfort of sport tires. Fast and high downforce cars are another whole level with wheel yet easier to manage than simple and humble road cars, at least in my experience. Front drive cars behave as expected since for the last 15 years IRL that’s what I’ve been driving on. So real life experience have helped in this regard.

So yeah, make simple goals, focus on what you want to achieve and on to the next goal.

Happy racing!

Thanks for sharing your experience! I do not think I will go the same route exactly with all assists. This will introduce some bad habits I am affraid. I tried two CEs (Dragon Trail and Kyoto) and got to within 0.6 sec of my fastest lap time, but yes - struggling on corner exits with acceleration!

Welcome to the wheel life!

Though I use an entirely different wheel, a T598, it takes me a lot of time to adjust. And despite my hectic schedule, I always find time during the day to practice, either hours or at least half an hour. Having a wheel takes total commitment. When I got a G29, at first I felt and I saw that my lap times were much slower than with a controller. But with thorough practice, I was able to lap 3 seconds faster.

A year later, I switched to a T598. Again, it's adjustment phase all over and now that I got a 488 GT3 Wheel add on, I got three seconds faster than with a G29. Same routine - hours and hours of practice, trying to find the best racing line and learning how different drivetrains work on the track.

For corner exits, TC is still off and... practice with accelerator control. Fun fact, Keisuke Takahashi from Initial D, his method is very very effective.


From here on out, you have to invest more time on practice with a wheel, especially that yours is a higher end than mine.

By the way, I fully agree — switching to a wheel really requires total commitment. It feels like relearning everything from the ground up, and also learning completely new things that you simply don’t experience on a pad.

That’s exactly what I’m feeling so far. Things like car rotation, corner exits, acceleration, and especially feeling grip and weight transfer are all very different compared to a controller.

I don’t think it’s realistic for me to expect huge gains. Even on pad I’m already around 1.5–2 seconds off world record pace depending on the track, so I’m obviously not going to suddenly gain three seconds — that would basically mean beating world record times. But even gaining two, three, or four tenths would already be a huge improvement for me.

 

[snowman_pr]

Thanks for sharing your experience! I do not think I will go the same route exactly with all assists. This will introduce some bad habits I am affraid. I tried two CEs (Dragon Trail and Kyoto) and got to within 0.6 sec of my fastest lap time, but yes - struggling on corner exits with acceleration!

And that’s totally fine, my case was a daresay an extreme example of full muscle memory overhaul 😅😅 after 20 plus years controller use it was a bit challenging at first, and also big props for using DragonTrail, that’s my test track too!

 

[crome]

Sen - Auto - GT7 auto-detects the rotation angle of each car on per-car basis, leave this alone.You want a 1:1 movement between your real life actions on the wheel vs. in-game hand movements.

Slight disagree on this one. I mostly leave this alone as well, but sometimes I find it advantageous to manually choose a lower steering angle than what the game selects to be able to change direction more quickly. i often choose 720 for road cars on twisty tracks like Eiger Nordwand.

 

[NevilleNobody]

Thread 'Had my first drive with a wheel........wow'

Sep 20, 2019

Not QUITE what i was expecting. I am ALL OVER the road, not the fanciest wheel (T150) but man, I am absolutely lost. Tried 10 laps and not able to finish even one. I have seen threads where folks struggle with this transition but maaaaaaaan.

So to the point, here is what I am experiencing;

- No fine control at all, when i first turn the wheel it's like it has a huge deadzone, so I have to turn quite aggressively
- Even on a properly executed corner entry, on exit, as i release the wheel slowly it hooofs me in the opposite direction

I tried reducing the angle to 540 degrees but still no...

• NevilleNobody
• Replies: 212
• Forum: Gran Turismo Sport

I was using old school X button and D-pad so a tougher transition but it took me years to make the switch. In saying that, the T150 was god-awful, just hopeless, and once I got me a fanatec DD Pro with a proper rig, it made a huge difference. Still, it took me about 2 months to match my controller times.

 

[Dule savic]

Sensitivity is always 1 on direct drives, don't ever go higher, oscillations can be introduced.
Depending on the car, at around setting 7 for max torque you introduce clipping on this base.

I read this about in game SEN on few places, but i see a lot of top drivers/streamers that use SEN on 10.
Confused why

 

[RS60NR]

I read this about in game SEN on few places, but i see a lot of top drivers/streamers that use SEN on 10.
Confused why

the SENS in game shortens the response time from 0 to max force, 10 being the most sensitive or quickest response - so those wanting a very reactive wheel would pick that if it suits their driving style.

By design it was likely intended to help the older belt and gear driven wheels feel a bit more lively as their response is damped a bit by those types of mechanism

Its pretty universally recommended for DD wheels to keep it low at 1 or 2 as those wheels are already very responsive. The higher setting can produce unwanted effects tho

A real world analogy in your cars steering rack would be to replace the hydraulics and rubber bushings w hard steel bushings. It would remove any compliance and steering would become more responsive but feedback from road feel would become very harsh

 

[SPDN Stefano]

Right now I would't focus to much on tweaking settings. Just use recommended settings and get a lot of time behind the wheel. Then you can finetune the settings later.

 

[NevilleNobody]

I'll go against the grain and say use TC for now, I just cannot get with TC0 on RWD cars at all, use 1 or 2 to develop some confidence, you're walking on egg shells on exit from what you are saying.

 

[Lomic]

I'll go against the grain and say use TC for now, I just cannot get with TC0 on RWD cars at all, use 1 or 2 to develop some confidence, you're walking on egg shells on exit from what you are saying.

He has a lot of meetings with his old friend Barry lately 😅

 

[Lightpilgrim]

Hi, thanks a lot for the message — I’ll watch the video you recommended.

I also agree it’s probably not worth spending too much time perfecting wheel settings right now. I have two profiles from two friends, so I’ll try one, then the other, and stick with it. I feel I can adapt to almost any setup. Once I become properly comfortable with the wheel and start noticing specific small limitations, that’s when I’ll make adjustments — but not at this stage.

Right now, the main priority for me is getting the brake pedal set up exactly right. That’s the most important part. What I need to develop is the feeling of controlling pressure precisely — being able to move smoothly from 100% to 75%, 75% to 50%, and down to 10%, and hold the pedal consistently at those levels.

I’ll experiment with that, but once it feels correct, the focus will simply be practice.

This is pretty much what I experienced - being hesitant on the throttle at corner exits. I think it's due to confidence - I had plenty of it to catch any oversteer with a controller, just a quick move of a finger and it's dealt with. It is much more effort to catch any slide on a wheel and it's more risky.

I pretty much only play online TTs now on both devices, my mileage with controller is higher, but my pace now is comparable on both. There are some combos which one or the other takes over. Oversteery cars I'd likely be faster in on controller due to above, while high speed precise corners would be easier on a wheel. As an example corner with big banking on Lago Maggiore - it's terrbily difficult to get perfect line on controller for me.

I also have Simnet pedals, there's at least a few of us in the forum here, so feel free to ask anything. What at least caught me out with them and only discovered it recently is that my settings were wrong on them - had to add some spacers to brake stack as the rod on brake doesn't have enough thread with my configuration and there was zero resistance for the first couple mm. See around 2:30 in below video to see what I mean - nut would stop at the end of thread instead of pushing on the stack.


I would not get too hung up on finding the perfect settings for the wheel - grab settings from the forum and practice - it's good to limit the variables in my opinion and build muscle memory first, only then play with the settings.

 

[Lightpilgrim]

So far I’ve done about four evenings on the wheel. Each session I picked a different Circuit Experience — different car, different track — and tried to gold it using the wheel.

Honestly, it almost makes me want to cry. The feeling reminds me of when I tore my knee ligaments years ago. After surgery, for the first few weeks my leg basically forgot how to walk. I had to relearn everything with tiny baby steps. That’s exactly how this feels now. Just a few days ago on the pad I was flying; on the wheel I suddenly drive like a complete monkey.

But despite the pain, I’ve managed to gold every Circuit Experience I tried so far — some came relatively quickly, others were a real struggle. It’s clearly going to be a painful transition:-)

 

[NevilleNobody]

WHat were you using on controller, as in what was your button layout?

 

[Lightpilgrim]

WHat were you using on controller, as in what was your button layout?

Normal. Did not change it.

 

[Lightpilgrim]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently in the middle of transitioning from controller to wheel in GT7 and I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have successfully gone through this change — especially those who were genuinely quick on a controller before moving to a wheel.

For context, on controller I could usually reach around top ~1–1.5% pace with relatively little practice (sometimes just a handful of laps to get comfortable). With the wheel, however, the experience feels completely different — not just slower, but significantly more complex and physically demanding.

There are three specific areas where I’m struggling the most and would love to understand what actually helped you improve:

1. Trail braking
Interestingly, this is the one area that already feels better on the wheel. Modulation makes more sense and I can see the potential clearly. Still learning consistency though — was there anything specific that made trail braking finally “click” for you?

2. Car rotation
This feels much harder than on controller. I struggle to rotate the car naturally at corner entry and mid-corner. Lines that felt intuitive before now feel awkward or delayed. What changed your understanding or technique here?

3. Acceleration / corner exit control
By far the hardest part for me. Especially with FR/Gr.3 cars — I’m constantly spinning or having to be overly cautious, losing huge amounts of time. On controller this felt almost automatic; on wheel it feels extremely sensitive. What helped you learn throttle control properly?

---

Another thing I’m genuinely curious about is the overall effort level.

On controller, driving feels effortless: sit on the couch, pick it up, and after a few laps I’m near my pace. On the wheel, it feels like a full physical and mental exercise — heavy braking, constant corrections, fatigue after relatively short sessions. Everything requires conscious effort.

So my question to those who made the transition successfully:

Did it eventually become effortless and natural?
Did you reach a point where driving on the wheel feels as relaxed and intuitive as using a controller — where you just drive without strain, exhaustion, or overthinking?

I’m not discouraged — just trying to understand what part of this is normal adaptation versus things I should actively train differently.

Really interested in hearing what specifically made the biggest difference for you during the transition.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nebuc72]

Another thing I’m genuinely curious about is the overall effort level.

On controller, driving feels effortless: sit on the couch, pick it up, and after a few laps I’m near my pace. On the wheel, it feels like a full physical and mental exercise — heavy braking, constant corrections, fatigue after relatively short sessions. Everything requires conscious effort.

So my question to those who made the transition successfully:

Did it eventually become effortless and natural?
Did you reach a point where driving on the wheel feels as relaxed and intuitive as using a controller — where you just drive without strain, exhaustion, or overthinking?

I’m not discouraged — just trying to understand what part of this is normal adaptation versus things I should actively train differently.

Really interested in hearing what specifically made the biggest difference for you during the transition.

Thanks in advance.

It's never been as 'relaxing' as controller has been to me, and I don't think it ever will be. It's inherently a more physical medium to engage the game with.

Obviously you'll get a bit more used to it all, the overthinking etc. will go away and the actual driving will be as intuitive as it was before, but you do lose the pick up and play 'chill' vibe of playing with your feet up and you'll find a good hard race actually gets you sweating.

 

[Greycap]

Did it eventually become effortless and natural?
Did you reach a point where driving on the wheel feels as relaxed and intuitive as using a controller — where you just drive without strain, exhaustion, or overthinking?

I've sometimes used a heart rate monitor while driving just out of curiosity, and there's nearly no difference to just sitting there. Somewhere around 10 bpm if even that. Of course, hard race situations or pushing the car to the absolute limit tend to increase the heart rate no matter what as you have to concentrate but the actual driving requires no noticable extra effort. I know a guy who needs to change his shirt in the middle of a longer "track day" as he sweats so much, no idea what he's doing to get to that point, but I sometimes do phone calls while hot lapping and reportedly sound no different to just hanging around. My T598 has the FFB at 5 and all the pedals are on their hardest spring settings with the brake pedal modded to be even stiffer.

 

[Lightpilgrim]

Hi everyone,

After a few days of practice and getting my rig and pedals properly set up, I went back to several Circuit Experiences to compare directly against my controller pace, and a very clear pattern started to appear.

Where I’m already doing okay on the wheel:

• Dragon Trail Gardens — after only a couple of days I matched my controller lap time, which was already about 2.4 seconds faster than gold.
• Watkins Glen — reasonably quick and comfortable on the wheel. Still slower than controller, but competitive and consistent.
• Medium/high-speed flowing sections in general feel manageable.

Where I’m struggling:

• Lago Maggiore — gold on the wheel, but still about 0.6s slower than my controller lap.
• Autopolis — seconds off my controller pace; I feel completely disconnected from the car.
• Dragon Trail Seaside — especially difficult. Sector 1 chicanes and the “chicane of death” lead to many crashes, and slow hairpins expose major weaknesses.

Across all of these, I keep seeing the same pattern:

I’m fine where rotation happens naturally through speed and flow, but I struggle heavily in slow corners, hairpins, and heavy braking zones where the car needs to rotate a lot before acceleration.

It’s starting to feel like the real issue isn’t steering or throttle alone, but understanding how to rotate the car using braking and brake release. On controller this seemed almost automatic; on the wheel, if rotation isn’t correct on entry, the exit becomes extremely difficult and I either under-rotate or spin on throttle.

So I’m trying to learn how to “steer the car with the brake” rather than just steering angle — but this is still very unintuitive.

For those who successfully transitioned from controller to wheel:

How did you actually learn to rotate the car with braking and trail braking?

• Was there a specific drill or practice method that made it click?
• Did you consciously focus on brake release timing?
• At what point did it start feeling natural instead of forced?

Right now slow corners feel like they expose every weakness in my driving, and I’d really like to understand what helped others bridge this gap.