I am learning tonight just how much of a difference can be made using a steering wheel as opposed to a basic gamepad.
My first steering wheel experience in GT Mode was made when I did the GT86 Time Trial Seasonal around Tsukuba. With a better feel of the road and in steering, I had to adjust my driving technique to handle Tsukuba with my Toyota GT 86. The first real challenge was to keep my car stable under braking and powering out of corners. I had to drive a bit more defensively just to try to avoid spinning the car out haphazardly. A key moment was made when I improved my initial lap time. The difference, however, was not by very much. I went from 1:14.196 to a 1:14.068.
I noticed that my driving around Daytona was getting better using my Driving Force Pro. So what I did was do the Stars and Stripes event with my Ford GT on Racing Hard tires. I had much better feel of the road as I could just easily steer the car properly to better feel of the road. Plus... I rarely had to use the brakes! In fact, I actually cleared laps around Daytona without needing to brake or get off the throttle with my Ford GT.
Confidence building, I then decided to visit the Jeff Gordon NASCAR School events. The first order of business was to see if the wheel was doing better for me. So I took on the Intermediate level challenges. I started with the Daytona-Inside challenge. After a few tries, I managed to clear the event with Gold (I had Silver previously). I then took on the Indy-Inside challenge- Gold in maybe 1 or three tries. Here's the REAL kicker... Daytona-Outside: Gold on the first try! Indianapolis-Outside: Gold on the first try, despite scraping the outside wall! Afterwards, I took on the second Beginner-level challenge that I previously got Silver in. Finally cleared that one with Gold. I didn't improve anything else except for the first of the Advanced challenges (two laps out of the pits). I think my previous best was 4th in that one.
So if anyone needs a moral to this story, a steering wheel can do you much better if you're looking for that extra little advantage. I am becoming a bit more confident with using my DFP, but there's still a lot of work to be done for me to be any sort of established wheel racer.
Including me!