Thrustmaster’s New Sim Racing Wheel Is a Replica Straight Out of Ferrari’s F1 Car
You may not have Charles Leclerc’s skills (or salary), but you can have his steering wheel.
If there's one activity that many of us explored in 2020—or at least thought of exploring—it's online gaming. More specifically, online racing. And while not everyone can afford the swanky rigs that many professional racing drivers set up in their homes, there are still enough products out there to build a solid and cool-looking sim without spending tens of thousands of dollars. Today, Thrustmaster is adding one more to that list: the Ferrari SF1000 Edition steering wheel.
Designed to replicate the steering wheel used by Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel in their SF1000 Formula 1 cars during the 2020 racing season, Thrustmaster's newest creation continues the brand's longtime partnership with Maranello. And judging by the photographs, the designers didn't gloss over any details found in the real deal.
Priced at $350, the Ferrari SF1000 Edition is a budget-friendly and extremely cool-looking wheel for your home rig, whether you play at your desk or on a full-blown sim. However, it's important to highlight that this steering wheel—which features actual carbon fiber on its front—is merely an "add-on" and simply buying this will not get you an actual working wheel.
In order to use the wheel for its intended purpose and not just a cool memento for your game room, you must buy a compatible Thrustmaster wheelbase, the main unit that connects to your gaming console or computer and provides the actual force feedback to the wheel. You can think of the Ferrari SF1000 Edition as an interchangeable wheel for the stock base, per se.
The different bases range in price depending on how complex, powerful, and detail-oriented you want them to be, but if you're spending $350 on a cool-looking "toy" wheel, then you're probably okay spending $500+ on the stuff that actually makes it go.
And speaking of details, the Ferrari SF1000 Edition is packed with them. For starters, the 4.3-inch center screen is fully operational and displays information like tire temperature, fuel levels, lap timing, and even energy use in a full range of colors. Above the display sit 15 LEDs that represent rpm in real-time as well as warning signals like yellow flags, blue flags, etc.
To go with the carbon fiber front, the paddles are made of real aluminum and can be customized to perform various functions. If you want to up your game and budget, however, they can be upgraded to Thrustmaster's T-Chrono Paddles, which featured gold-plated contacts for even quicker reactions and are sold separately.
The Thrustmaster Ferrari SF1000 Edition steering wheel is already on sale in Europe and will make its debut worldwide on May 18. It will be available for the F1 2021 video game that's coming to PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and PC on July 16.
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