I'm terrible with a wheel

Not everything is about being quicker - do you enjoy driving with a wheel more? I certainly do.

For myself I am quicker with a wheel but I think this is principally because it feels more natural since it's how I drive a real car. Trying to drive with a controller just feels wrong by comparison but then I've never driven much at all with a controller. The situation is very different for someone who has learnt to be fast with a controller and then switches to a wheel though.

When you say you've put in 'lots of practice' how long do you mean? And what if any assists are you using actually?

My advice would be stick with it. Practice, practice, and practice again. Eventually you'll get the hang of it.

Since changing to a wheel (many years ago), I'll never go back to Pad.

About 2-years ago I changed from TV-Pod view to Cockpit view. Now THAT was hard. But despite being much slower, I stuck with it, and I now I feel that Cockpit view has really enhanced my racing experience.

There's no magic fix to your change.  It just takes time, ...and practice.  Good luck 🙂

@NylinkHow long have you been playing with the wheel?

For Codemasters' games, I think it's just the oddity of them being very nice on a (current gen) pad and subpar on a wheel in terms of force feedback.

Putting that aside though, it takes days to get used to the footwork, and I'd say at least a week to get dexterous enough on the braking. And the evolution is like... +1 for every hour on it, then +5 when get some rest and come back fresh on the next day.

Bottom line being it may very well be incredibly frustrating on the first 3 days. But it gets better, I promise.

There are well known mods for your particular wheels brake pedal. They may very well improve your experience a lot. I wouldn't even consider them without putting at least 1 week of honest effort on the default though.

@TotosHeadphones can help you with that.

It may help to mix in another game, preferably a simracing title. I don't know what platform you're on but if you can, give it a try!

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@Albert_Park_ wrote:

About 2-years ago I changed from TV-Pod view to Cockpit view. Now THAT was hard. But despite being much slower, I stuck with it, and I now I feel that Cockpit view has really enhanced my racing experience.

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I made the switch to cockpit view part way through F1 2021 and like I think you were saying I get more enjoyment out of the experience even though I know I could be more consistently quicker if I went back to TV-pod view. Similarly I bet I could be quicker with some assists on but I prefer the challenge/experience of them being off. 

As I referred to in my first post, being quicker isn't necessarily the sole factor in choosing how to play.

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@mariohomoh wrote:

@NylinkHow long have you been playing with the wheel?

For Codemasters' games, I think it's just the oddity of them being very nice on a (current gen) pad and subpar on a wheel in terms of force feedback.

Putting that aside though, it takes days to get used to the footwork, and I'd say at least a week to get dexterous enough on the braking. And the evolution is like... +1 for every hour on it, then +5 when get some rest and come back fresh on the next day.

Bottom line being it may very well be incredibly frustrating on the first 3 days. But it gets better, I promise.

There are well known mods for your particular wheels brake pedal. They may very well improve your experience a lot. I wouldn't even consider them without putting at least 1 week of honest effort on the default though.

@TotosHeadphones can help you with that.

It may help to mix in another game, preferably a simracing title. I don't know what platform you're on but if you can, give it a try!

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I guess it depends how many hours per day somebody plays but I must admit that it took me far longer than you're suggesting, and sadly I think referring to my braking even now as 'dextrous' would be a bit of a stretch! I am a talentless old man though 🤐.

I started using a wheel in 2015 and I am still learning how to be better with it. Making sure you are comfortable with your seating position and you pedal position is important. I wasn't very good when I started and it took a lot of spinning and crashing to start to improve. It is worth sinking the time into though. 

@Ultrasonic_77no, I don't find it as fun right now because I'm not as quick. It's just really frustrating at the moment. I've been driving for years in real life, it just doesn't feel the same in a game for some reason. I can't get the hang of it.

Right now I'm on medium TC (I don't spin out with it) and auto gears because I can't drive properly in the first place lol. My whole reason to switch to wheel is to stop using autogears and tc.

@mariohomohit's been about a week. I thought I would pick it up faster than I have so that's probably why I feel so frustrated. I think I'm honestly worse than when I started using the wheel. I play on PC, and I have a lot of other sims that I want to play that I haven't because they suck with controller. That's the main draw for me to these F1 games, since I can use a controller and have fun with it.

@Bauersomeyeah, the stand I bought allows me to adjust for my liking, which I think I have nailed at this point. I don't know if my wheel is acting right or that I set it up correctly because I find it super sensitive, which makes me twitchy when using it.

Tried the wheel again today and dropped it for my controller in Canada, I don't want this wheel to go to waste..

I had same issues before using analog sticks became I thing.  And numb thumb was all the rage from using d-pad.   Was useless when forced to use the stick but before long stick was the way.   Just a matter off getting used to it and muscle memory 

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@Nylink wrote:

@Ultrasonic_77no, I don't find it as fun right now because I'm not as quick. It's just really frustrating at the moment. I've been driving for years in real life, it just doesn't feel the same in a game for some reason. I can't get the hang of it.

Right now I'm on medium TC (I don't spin out with it) and auto gears because I can't drive properly in the first place lol. My whole reason to switch to wheel is to stop using autogears and tc.

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First up a week sounds like nothing to me although it will depend how many hours per day we're talking. I'd suggest you switch to manual gears right now personally. You're already slower than you'd like so may as well bite the bullet and learn this while you're at it. Assuming you drive a manual car in real life you likely won't find it takes too long to get the hang of this, although it may feel a little overwhelming when you very first try. It may be obvious but get used to thinking how many gears you need to go down as you approach each corner, and then count the gear change lever pulls (e.g. going from 8 th to 4 th I'm thinking four clicks down on the gear change lever as I approach the corner). Manually controlling gears will allow you to short-shift, and make it much easier to then transition from medium TC to off. 

Personally I find the physical activity of driving with a wheel, pedals and also manually changing gears greatly adds to the immersion (sense of driving a real car vs a toy/game). The downside is that sometimes when I'm tired after work I don't feel up to playing in the way I probably would if I used a controller.

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@Nylink wrote:

@Ultrasonic_77no, I don't find it as fun right now because I'm not as quick. It's just really frustrating at the moment. I've been driving for years in real life, it just doesn't feel the same in a game for some reason. I can't get the hang of it.

Right now I'm on medium TC (I don't spin out with it) and auto gears because I can't drive properly in the first place lol. My whole reason to switch to wheel is to stop using autogears and tc.

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First up a week sounds like nothing to me although it will depend how many hours per day we're talking. I'd suggest you switch to manual gears right now personally. You're already slower than you'd like so may as well bite the bullet and learn this while you're at it. Assuming you drive a manual car in real life you likely won't find it takes too long to get the hang of this, although it may feel a little overwhelming when you very first try. It may be obvious but get used to thinking how many gears you need to go down as you approach each corner, and then count the gear change lever pulls (e.g. going from 8 th to 4 th I'm thinking four clicks down on the gear change lever as I approach the corner). Manually controlling gears will allow you to short-shift, and make it much easier to then transition from medium TC to off. 

Personally I find the physical activity of driving with a wheel, pedals and also manually changing gears greatly adds to the immersion (sense of driving a real car vs a toy/game). The downside is that sometimes when I'm tired after work I often don't feel up to playing in the way I probably would if I used a controller.