Logitech PRO Racing Wheel Review

I’m not going to lie, this is an exciting moment for me. My first ever sim racing wheel was a Logitech G27, and I’ve grown and improved alongside various racing wheels from Logitech.

So to now see the company that helped me get into sim racing releasing a high-end direct drive wheel. Well, that makes me a little warm and fuzzy inside.

But that’s definitely enough fanboying for this review. I’m here to give my impartial thoughts on the new Logitech Pro Racing Wheel. And this wheel is really entering the sim racing world in a completely different landscape to when it last released a product.

Rolling back a few years to the release of the budget-friendly G923, it was a time when budget-friendly gear and belt-driven wheels really dominated the market. If you wanted a more professional sim racing wheel, you had to spend big money on a direct drive wheel base.

But fast forwarding back to 2022, and that has all changed. Sim racers have been treated to a wide array of smaller, cheaper and more accessible direct drive wheel bases.

Now, if you want to jump into direct drive sim racing, you don’t need to take out a bank loan anymore. So when I received this new Pro racing wheel from Logitech, I was convinced it was going to be a product in a similar vein. And then I saw the size of the box.

Watch our full video review

What is the Logitech Pro Wheel?

This Pro racing wheel definitely isn’t a small, underpowered direct drive wheel base. Instead, it treads a middle ground between those offerings and the really hardcore high-end wheel bases. And it comes with a relatively high price tag of €1099 or $999.

And this leads me to my big question. Is there space in sim racing in 2022 for this style of racing wheel at this price point? Have Logitech missed the boat a little bit with their direct drive entry, or have they really nailed the perfect product for a wide range of sim racers?

Before I go any further, I just want to thank Logitech for sending me this wheel for review before it was officially announced. This really helped us bring you this review quickly, ready to try and help you decide if you should consider this as a purchase or not.

But rest assured, this review is completely unbiased. If something is a bit rubbish, I’ll definitely tell you, and if it’s good I’ll give praise where it’s due.

Price

But let’s rewind around 30 seconds and touch on that price point a little bit more.

The cost of the Logitech Pro wheel is towards the more premium end of the market. But you do have to remember this price includes the wheel base, a steering wheel and a table clamp.

The cost on launch for the Logitech Pro Racing Wheel is €1099 or $999.

While this may seem expensive. After all, that price would bag you a direct drive wheel base and a steering wheel from other brands.

To put this price into perspective, an equivalent offering from another brand such as Fanatec would cost you around €900.

That price includes a CSL DD with the boost kit at €599. But that wouldn’t net you the same power output as this wheel, because the CSL DD only produces 8Nm.

And then you would need to purchase a steering wheel which starts from around €199 for something similar to this Pro wheel. You’d then also really need to purchase the QR1 quick release as the QRLite that is supplied with Fanatec’s cheaper wheels really isn’t very good. And a table clamp if you really want to match this wheel’s specs costing another €30.

So as you can see with this example, the Logitech Pro wheel is coming out more expensive than an exact comparison from another brand. But you get more performance for that price point.

You would also be a part of Logitech’s new direct drive ecosystem, which I’m almost certain is set to expand with additional products later in 2022 and 2023. But I’ll talk more about that later!

The Design of the Logitech Pro Wheel

So I’ve touched on the price and the overall landscape of sim racing in 2022. But now let’s really take a deep dive into this Pro racing wheel.

I’m going to start by looking at the design, then move on to the performance and round everything out talking about compatibility, availability and my final thoughts.

Wheel Base

And I want to kick things off with the wheel base itself. And it certainly is a big boy. I may just be thinking this because I’ve become so used to the small form factor direct drive wheel bases of late.

But the size and design does look much similar to the same design philosophy that Logitech have used in the past. To put the size into perspective, I compared it to a Podium DD1, which is a fairly typical size for a direct drive wheel base.

A DD1 measures in at 240mm not including the protruding drive shaft, 155mm deep and 175mm wide.

In comparison, this Pro wheel comes in at 220mm long, 190mm deep and 300mm wide at its widest point.

So you can see that it’s a little shorter, but it is slightly deeper and substantially wider.

This design choice is really comprised of two things. The first is that there is an internal fan included to help dissipate heat which takes up room inside the body. And then, the width is also related to the table clamp and overall mounting philosophy.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Richard Neville, the portfolio manager for simulation and controllers at Logitech. And he told me that the design philosophy behind the Logitech Pro racing wheel was the ease of use and accessibility.

This is emphasised with the inclusion of a table clamp. One of the priorities for this Pro wheel was for it to be usable in a wide variety of scenarios, including mounting to a desk.

Now, mounting an 11Nm direct drive wheel base to a desk with a single table clamp sounds like madness. But combining the strength of the table clamp and the width of the wheel base provides an extremely solid platform.

And this is why the bottom of the wheel base is relatively wide. It has a pretty wide and aggressive stance, and I kind of dig it. The top and rear section of the wheel base swoops away from the driver in a similar fashion to a Formula 1 car does.

And the front design with the huge grill and angular lines looks pretty cool.

There is an OLED screen on the front of the wheel base which can be used as the central point for changing settings. This is accessed by the settings button right next to it and allows you to adjust settings using the steering wheel, even when you’re in-game. I’ll talk about this in more detail later on.

I’d have to say my main disappointment with the wheel base is that it’s rather plasticky in its construction. The reason for this I presume is that the outer body isn’t required to be metal as it isn’t used as a heat sink like some other wheel bases. But it does slightly detract from the overall aesthetic.

Although, this is already a relatively heavy wheel base. So finishing all of the exterior in metal would only add to that weight. So I can’t imagine it would have been an overly practical choice.

Despite this, there is a good use of matte and glossy plastic to add layers of interest to the design. And I like the use of glossy plastic on the logos. It does add some extra layers of class.

Around the rear of the wheel base are a variety of connection ports along with the ventilation for the fan. There are three USB ports, one of which can be used to connect the pedals. And the other two I presume will be for additional peripherals in the future.

Then there is a power supply port and a micro USB port. I would have rather seen a USB C port here, but I guess it wasn’t required, so micro USB it is.

Steering Wheel

Moving onto the design of the steering wheel. This is somewhere that I always firmly believed Logitech have nailed in the past. The G29 and G923 were great-looking budget steering wheels.

And you can certainly see the same design philosophy in this wheel rim. There is a similar combination of materials in use, but everything feels a touch more premium.

The perforated leather that wraps the hand grips is extremely soft to the touch and feels comfortable in your hands without racing gloves on. The metal that is used for the face plate has a nice subtle brushed effect and the use of plastic has been reduced compared to the G923.

Gone are the shift lights on the top of the wheel, instead, these have been moved to the front of the wheel base. And there are a few new additions to this wheel.

There is the standard array of push buttons which all have a very short throw. This makes button inputs very easy to make and there is a nice click once each button is activated.

8-way joystick

There is an 8-way joystick, again with a very short range of movement. This can be used to navigate menus or look around your car and much like the buttons, feels positive and relatively high quality.

Although I do keep trying to push the joystick in and rotate it. This is a feature that is found on some other steering wheels and allows additional inputs to be mapped without having to include additional buttons. It’s a little bit of a shame that this feature isn’t on this wheel.

Rotary encoders

Then there are two quirky rotary encoders. One is placed facing the driver, and the other facing the driver’s hands. This kind of works in practice. The bottom left encoder is almost a thumb encoder requiring very little hand movement to activate. While the right-hand encoder is much more traditional requiring you to remove your hand to activate.

These are very light to use allowing multiple changes to be made very quickly. I quite like this approach as I could make quick adjustments much easier when compared to some stiffer encoders on other steering wheels.

Both of these encoders also have a push function allowing for an additional input to be mapped to each one.

Magnetic Shifters and Dual Clutch

Flipping the wheel over and you’ll notice a few elements that have never been on a Logitech wheel before. First of all there are a set of magnetic shifters which have just the right amount of resistance. And they are very quiet to operate.

These are a breath of fresh air, as most modern day steering wheels have extremely loud shifters. The shifting on this Logitech Pro wheel is effortless and very smooth.

Just below the shifters are a couple of dual-clutch paddles. These have the same metal construction as the shifters and are analogue. This allows you to map them to a variety of functions including throttle and brake, or as a true dual-clutch.

Within G Hub you can set the bite point of the shifters allowing for a perfect getaway from the line every time!

Quick release

And then there is the quick release. This marks the first time Logitech has included a quick release, and it points to them potentially releasing additional steering wheels in the future.

The quick release has been developed to be smooth, lightweight and function without any issues. The design takes a rather familiar form factor, especially if you’ve been using the Fanatec QR1. But this isn’t a bad thing.

The design allows users to easily grip and remove the steering wheel with ease, all in a single action. And then to re-attach the wheel to the wheel base, it’s a simple case of aligning the arrow on the steering wheel with the arrow and groove on the wheel base. Then push and the wheel is ready to race.

Unlike some wheel bases, Logitech’s attempt is rather bulletproof. During use, even at the maximum torque setting of 11Nm, there is no slip or unwanted movement in the quick release mechanism.

Table Clamp

With the Logitech Pro wheel, you do get a table clamp included. This table clamp attaches to the front of the wheel base via a sliding mechanism. And it locks the wheel to your table, desk or sim rig via a single strong rotating clamp.

The table clamp screws up to the underside of your surface very easily. This allows you to very quickly mount and unmount the wheel base. And the surface of the clamp that touches your desk has a nice high-quality rubber pad.

This rotates individually of the screw ensuring that the underside of your surface isn’t marked or damaged. This is often a complaint when using table clamps from other brands, so it’s refreshing to see Logitech create a nice solution.

The clamp works to secure your wheel base centrally, and then the width of the wheel base helps to keep the whole product stuck in place. And I’m pleased to say that the table clamp really works, even when racing with the full 11Nm of torque available.

I was sceptical at first, thinking that the wheel would eventually shake itself loose. But across multiple hours of racing, the table clamp kept the wheel base in its original position.

Wheel Performance

With Logitech’s previous experience with sim racing, many will have extremely high hopes for this, their first direct drive wheel. And I can say right off the bat, that Logitech has nailed the force feedback feeling with this wheel.

There are quite simply layers of force feedback present in this wheel that I’ve not really experienced with other direct drive wheel bases. Every company handles the translation of force feedback differently, but Logitech has seemingly managed to almost split the force feedback into layers. And I think this is in part thanks to TrueForce.

The first layer of force feedback provides a strong, weighty steering wheel. As you attack a corner, you have to muscle the car into turning, and hold against the resistance of the motor trying to push back against your input.

This feels excellent. And while the force feedback is strong, it’s oh so smooth. There isn’t really a presence of unnecessary shaking in an effort to translate different forces to you. Everything with this Pro wheel is intentional, strong and detailed where it needs to be.

While the regular force feedback feeling of weight shifts, and different forces are all present, there is a secondary layer of forces. These are reserved for smaller vibrations such as the bottom of your car making contact with the road, rumble strip vibrations and how it feels as your wheels break traction.

During any of these scenarios, the motor inside the wheelbase will vibrate and rumble accordingly. Rather than simply shaking your wheel out of your hand every time you ride over a kerb. There is an underlying rumble as though you are in the car and you’re actually feeling the vibrations through the tyres and body of the car. So you end up with this dual channel of force feedback.

Other wheel bases will simply apply additional wheel shake, vibration and force when applying these forces. But this separation in this Pro wheel really helps inform the driver exactly what forces they are feeling. There is a distinct difference in forces such as kerbs, wheel slip and weight transfer.

TrueForce

I mentioned TrueForce there, so I thought it was only right that I explain it a little more. TrueForce made its debut on the G923. This technology allowed in-game audio to be translated into vibrations and rumbling within the steering wheel. This meant that if you rev the car while not moving, you can feel the revs through the steering wheel.

With this Pro wheel, TrueForce returns and has been reworked to produce an even more immersive experience. TrueForce feeds right into the physics engine and extracts a variety of different in-game audio cues and effects. Then the software within the wheel translates these effects into a variety of vibrations within the steering wheel.

There are now elements such as a slight jerk or vibration when you shift up or down. And you’ll feel varying levels of vibration as your wheels slip across a track surface. Additional elements such as engine revs, rumble strip vibrations and car vibrations under acceleration are all present.

And these vibrations work alongside the force feedback generated from the direct drive motor to produce a strangely realistic feeling.

Temperature control and fans

Unlike many small direct drive wheel bases that have launched recently, Logitech has taken a different approach when it comes to cooling. They’ve installed a single fan inside the Pro wheel base, which works to keep the internal temperature low.

This does mean that the external body of the wheel base doesn’t really heat up at all. Instead, the internal fan dynamically varies its speed depending on how hot the wheel base is getting.

This does mean that if you are racing in a warm environment for long periods of time, you may hear some fan noise as the fan works harder to keep the internals cool.

But I’m happy to say this really wasn’t an issue for me. I race in a relatively average temperature room, and even when racing for longer periods with higher force feedback strength settings, I never heard the fan speed up.

There really is very little fan noise when operating the Pro wheel. Only in extreme situations will the fan noise become an issue.

What the inclusion of an internal fan does do, however, is it prevents the outside of the wheel base from heating up. Some wheel bases get very hot due to the external walls being used as a heat sync. But not this Pro wheel.

Adjustability

The Logitech Pro wheel features a sharp OLED display on the front of the wheel base. And from here you can access a variety of customisable settings and options.

You can adjust the wheel’s steering lock, the overall strength of force feedback, the output response curve and more settings. These can all be changed through the wheel base itself if connected to a console, or can be accessed via the G Hub software if you are using a PC.

These adjustments work alongside in-game settings to really help you dial in the overall feeling you get from the wheel.

And once you have created a selection of settings that feel just right, you can then save those to a custom profile. You can have a number of different profiles saved, each with different settings. And you can quickly change between these profiles on the fly.

This gives you a lot of scope to be able to create different settings for different games, or for different cars in-game.

For example, in a game such as Forza or Gran Turismo. You can create a profile that is more suited for road cars. And then create another profile that works well with track cars. And create a third profile that is ideal for open-wheel Formula 1 cars.

And then, as you jump in and out of different cars in-game, you can select the correct profile on the wheel in a matter of seconds. This saves a lot of time re-adjusting settings over and over as you chop and change cars and games.

External actions and button mapping

One really cool feature that can be configured for PC sim racers via G Hub is enabling external actions. By this I mean you can configure certain buttons or inputs on the Pro wheel to perform certain actions within Windows and other software outside of the game you playing.

For example, you can set a single button to map a command in Discord to mute the voice chat. Or toggle recording on and off in OBS. This means that you won’t need to exit your game to enable these features.

While racing, simply press the button assigned to that action, and you’ll be able to perform that action. If you do this, G Hub will then disable that button in-game meaning it won’t perform an in-game action at the same time.

This feature is fantastic and really removes the need to take your hands off the wheel to push a shortcut on your keyboard or button box. And it opens up features such as push to talk via Discord rather than using an in-game voice chat.

Customisable rev lights

I mentioned that the rev lights have been removed from the steering wheel and are now on the front of the wheel base. And these rev lights can be customised much like other parts of this wheel.

There is a variety of presets that allow the rev lights to shift in different patterns. You can go from left to right, or change it from outside to inside for example.

And then, if that isn’t enough, you can jump into G Hub and customise the color of each individual LED light. The rev lights in action are incredibly bright, and you can really see in your peripheral vision just when to shift.

Compatibility

Console compatibility

Much like previous Logitech sim racing products, this Pro wheel comes in two variations. You have a PlayStation-compatible variant and a separate Xbox-compatible variant.

Both of these products are compatible with PC. This requires sim racers to choose the correct version of the Pro wheel which aligns with the console you’ll be racing on. And unfortunately, it also means that you won’t be able to race on both Xbox and PS5 with a single Pro wheel.

Logitech has however worked closely with both PlayStation and Xbox to ensure that all functionality on the wheel works with either console. This means that on normally restrictive Xbox consoles, additional functionality such as the OLED display, rev lights and additional inputs will work.

This is pretty huge, as normally Xbox limits any additional buttons or inputs and simply doesn’t allow for them to work. As an example, many buttons on Fanatec steering wheels simply won’t register or work when connected to an Xbox console.

For Logitech to be able to work closely with Xbox to ensure this additional functionality is supported is fantastic news. Now, it is up to individual game developers to decide whether they want to incorporate this additional functionality into their games.

So there may be some racing games that don’t support these additional inputs. But that decision is with the game developer. Logitech has provided the platform for the extra inputs and functionality to be fully operational.

With PlayStation, as with most peripherals, all additional functionality on the Pro wheel will work with the majority of games.

Additional peripherals

The introduction of the quick release system to the Logitech Pro wheel does lead us to believe that future steering wheel add-ons will be available in the future. Nothing has been officially announced regarding the future roadmap, but it is a pretty safe bet that this will be the case.

There are also three USB ports on the rear of the Pro wheel base. Again nothing has been officially announced, but it is safe to say that these ports are there for a reason. This could mean that we are likely to see additional shifters and handbrake options in the future.

Cons of the Pro wheel

Now it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mention some negatives that are present in this Pro racing wheel, as there are some.

My first and main complaint is the size of the wheel base. As I mentioned earlier it’s pretty big. It’s much much larger than the smaller budget-friendly direct drive wheel bases, but that’s to be expected. However, it also has a considerably larger footprint than a lot of other high-end wheel bases.

This is to ensure that it can both cool itself efficiently and that it is stable while using the table clamp. I understand this choice, but it does take a little adjustment when transitioning from other wheel bases.

There is also an incline on the angle that the steering wheel is pointing. This made setting up the ideal mounting position a little more awkward as I had to angle my wheel mount down at the front. No other direct drive wheel base has this incline.

It’s there because of the table clamp. When sitting at a desk racing, you need this incline to have a comfortable driving position. So having it built in is nice for that use case.

However, it would have been nice if this incline was built into the table clamp, or if there was a way of side mounting this wheel base. That would make mounting in a rig a little easier.

Another area that the size affects is when aligning your wheel up with your monitor or TV. Like many sim racers, I like to position my wheel as close to my display as I can. This allows me to feel more immersed in the car I’m driving. Due to the length and height of this wheel, I now have my wheel much further away from my display.

I’ll often have the top of the steering wheel overlapping my display so that I can see the on-screen dashboard through the gap underneath the top of the wheel rim. However, due to the fact that the wheel base sticks up so much from the driveshaft, it makes setting up in this manner very hard.

You can see that from my perspective, I’ve had to lower the whole wheel so that the top of the wheel base doesn’t obscure my on-screen dash. But in doing so it reduces the gap between the top of the wheel base and the steering wheel rim. This means I can no longer see my full on-screen dash when racing games such as ACC or iRacing.

This is possibly my main annoyance when racing with this wheel, as it disrupts my usual flow. I’m having to constantly look around my wheel rim to see vital information.

I do also feel that the steering wheel itself lacks a little personality. The design of it is OK… But there isn’t anything that I particularly love about the way the steering wheel looks. The older G923 had a bit more of a unique character. The angled lines and skinny face plate made the wheel unique.

However, this Pro steering wheel design is extremely similar to other steering wheels available. I presume the designers were going for that pure motorsport look, incorporating the same shaped faceplate as a real-world wheel from brands such as OMP. But I think this is a slightly missed opportunity.

Other than the strangely mounted rotary encoder, if you remove the Logitech logo and blue accents, you’d have a hard time figuring out which brand designed this wheel. I would have liked to see something a little unique. Some extra design flourishes.

But, with the introduction of the quick release, this is certainly an area that may not be an issue in the future. Logitech now has the platform to release additional steering wheel peripherals making this a moot point.

Should you buy the Logitech Pro Wheel?

And I’m going to try and wrap things up there. This has been a pretty lengthy review, but it’s a product that I believe deserves an in-depth discussion. Being Logitech’s first direct drive racing wheel, it needs to be talked about. As this could well become one of the most popular sim racing products on the market as time goes by.

I have to say that the force feedback that this wheel produces is incredible. The combination of different effects that are present is outstanding, and a lot of that is thanks to TrueForce. It almost makes me not want to use other direct drive wheel bases, as I know I will be missing out on some of the small layers of detail that are present here.

Although for me and my current setup, the size of the product, and the drawbacks associated with that mean that this won’t be my new regular racing wheel. If Logitech releases a formula-style steering wheel in the future, fixing the issue of screen coverage that I have. Then I would have to strongly consider it as my new favourite wheel.

But that leads me to have to answer the question that I asked at the beginning of this review. Is there space for this style of racing wheel in 2022? And I firmly believe there is.

This wheel offers force feedback that is hard to beat at this price point. It comes with a decent steering wheel, and a table clamp that actually works at supporting this wheel when desk mounted. And that is exactly what a lot of sim racers may be looking for.