Best racing wheel for beginners: what you need to get started

If you have never used a wheel, you do not need the best one on the market. You need one that pushes back, that stays put on your desk and that works on your console. Everything else (the rim material, the screen, how many buttons it has) matters much later, once you know whether you like this.

Force feedback, yes

It is the only thing we would not give up. Force feedback is the motor that makes the wheel push back: it gets heavy in a fast corner, goes light when the front starts to slide and shakes over a kerb. Without it you are steering blind. The cheapest wheels do not have it: the Thrustmaster T98 and the Hori Racing Wheel Apex turn 240 and 270 degrees and do not push back at all. They are fine for trying it on the sofa, but in a Formula 1 game you do not feel the car, and the jump to a real wheel is one you will end up making anyway.

Gears, hybrid or direct drive

All the force feedback wheels in the entry range do the same thing in three different ways. The Logitech G29, G920 and G923 use gears: they are tough, they have been around for years and they publish 2.3 Nm of torque. The Thrustmaster T248R is hybrid, with a belt and gears, which makes it smoother; it publishes 3.1 Nm, the most in its range. And the Moza R3 is direct drive: the motor turns the steering shaft with nothing in between, with 3.9 Nm.

For a beginner, any of the three works. Gears are the easiest to set up and the ones with the most guides out there. On PC, though, we would go straight to the R3: it costs about the same as a geared wheel and it takes much longer to feel short when you start to improve. On console there is no direct drive at that price, so the question does not come up.

The desk counts too

A wheel that moves when you turn it is impossible to drive. The Logitechs come with a desk clamp and bolt points in case you later move to a stand. Up to about 4 Nm, which is everything on this page, a normal sturdy desk is enough; from around 5.5 Nm a desk starts to shift and you want a stand or a cockpit, which is a separate expense. The pedals are the other half: on a smooth floor they slide when you brake, so put them against the wall or on a mat that grips.

Two pedals or three

The third pedal is the clutch, and for Formula 1 you do not need it: an F1 car changes gear with the paddles and has no clutch pedal. If you only play F1, two pedals are enough. If you also want rally or road cars with a manual gearbox, three. What does change the feel is the brake: the T248R one has Hall sensors, which do not wear like a potentiometer, and four firmness levels.

What we would pick

On PlayStation, the G29 if you want to spend as little as possible, and the T248R if you can stretch a bit: more torque and better pedals. On Xbox, the same pair: the G920 and the T248 in its Xbox version. On PC, the Moza R3, with its two pedals. And if you just want to find out whether you like this and spend the least possible, the Thrustmaster T128 has force feedback, works on all three platforms and is the cheapest in the list, although Thrustmaster does not publish its torque and it comes with two pedals.

If you have a bit more money and want to see everything that fits under 300 euros, we have a page for that: best racing wheel under €300.