Our Verdict
Pros
- Can handle direct drive racing wheels.
- Incredibly easy to adjust.
- It can be folded away with relative ease.
- Comfortable to race longer sessions.
- Great cam lever system for making adjustments.
Cons
- Flex and wobble are present in the racing wheel mount.
- Not easy to get into and out of.
- Heavy when fully folded.
- Some push pin adjustments can be tricky.
The Next Level Racing Formula Lite Pro cockpit is an all-in-one sim racing cockpit that on paper, is perfect for me. It sits you in a very reclined formula driving position, can support direct drive racing wheels up to 10Nm, and folds up for relatively easy storage at the end of a long race session.
As someone who is always constructing and deconstructing my own sim racing setups due to reviewing different hardware, having a formula-style cockpit that I can keep out of sight and break out when I have the urge to race open-wheeled cars is perfect, in theory.
Next Level Racing must have known that I had a longing for a cockpit that puts you in a true F1 driving position, either that, or they saw my GT Omega F1 cockpit review. Either way, they sent me this new Formula Lite Pro cockpit to live with and review for some time, so here we go.
What is the Next Level Racing Formula Lite Pro?
Despite its long name, this cockpit is designed to be a compact, lightweight F1-style cockpit that doesn’t cost the earth. It features a relatively lightweight metal frame, and a good helping of fabric strapping to create a sturdy enough platform to go sim racing.
The driving position is actually pretty close to a true F1 position with a very reclined seat and elevated pedals. At the heart of this cockpit, though, is the ability to move it very easily and fold everything up for storage once you’ve finished racing.
Watch our video review
Review video coming soon.
Price
I did mention that this cockpit doesn’t cost the world, and that’s true. It has a price tag of £279 or $299, and that puts it in a pretty unique space in terms of budget. It costs around double the price of a budget wheel stand, but it’s a lot cheaper than a decent all-in-one cockpit.
Its direct competition comes from cockpits such as the Playseat Challenge and Evolution, and that’s about it. Other more permanent cockpits cost considerably more, while most other foldable cockpits look and feel less premium.
| Region | Price |
|---|---|
| United States | $299 |
| Europe | €299 |
| United Kingdom | £279 |
- Buy the Formula Lite Pro (United States) – From $299
- Buy the Formula Lite Pro (Europe) – From €299
- Buy the Formula Lite Pro (United Kingdom) – From £279
Design & build quality
Talking of how premium this Formula Lite Pro cockpit is, I’m going to start my design critique with the chair, and this is an area where this cockpit excels.
The racing seat
The worst thing about most temporary cockpits is that the racing chairs are normally no more than a piece of thin fabric to stop you falling backwards everytime you hit the brake pedal. That is not the case with this seat.
For a start, the design looks incredibly good with the supportive bolsters and modern shapes. Then you feel the padding which is super soft and plush. There are five segments that curve up the seat, giving you good support and comfort while racing. In between these five segments is a mesh fabric which keeps you cool if you’re in the chair for a long time.
The side bolsters are equally plush, and the soft touch suede-like material gives this whole racing seat a high-end appearance. I did have a small amount of damage on the cockpit I received where it had looked like a cat had clawed the seat. I did have a word with my cat, but she insists it wasn’t her.
However, when this cockpit is out on show, this mark is covered by my backside, and when I’m not in the seat racing, its folded up in a cupboard.
The frame
The long, slender frame that wraps around this cockpit provides most structural support. It’s pretty thin but finished nicely in satin black, and there are protective rubber pads everywhere the cockpits touch the floor.
I’ll discuss the frame’s sturdiness more when I discuss performance, but from a design perspective, it looks smart and inoffensive.
A host of fabric support straps supports the frame. It’s almost as if Next Level Racing wasn’t quite confident that the cam system would hold in place, and the straps are there to prevent the whole cockpit from folding up halfway through a corner.
These straps run primarily to the wheel deck, and although they don’t provide much structural support when stationary, they do keep the wheel deck mount slightly better supported during gameplay. I’m not a fan of these straps because although the quality of strapping is high, they make the whole cockpit look a little more budget, as though they couldn’t afford an extra piece of metal frame.
Mounting your racing wheel and pedals
The pedal deck is a very well-designed part of the cockpit. It is about as simple as it gets: two strips of metal with slot gaps in each. These can be adjusted across the whole length of the lower frame and moved individually.
This configuration means you can mount just about any sim racing pedal to this cockpit. Reviewing this cockpit allowed me to break out my much loved Asetek Forte pedals, and they were easier to mount to this cockpit than some of my 8020 sim rigs.
The wheel deck is equally as prepared to handle any racing wheel. The deck itself can’t be height adjusted individually of the racing seat, but it does feature angle adjustments and front and rear adjustment.
I found more than enough range of movement to position my racing wheel in a good spot. The wheel deck is pre-drilled to accommodate most wheel bases, but due to pure laziness, I mounted my Logitech Pro Wheel using the desk clamp.
How easy are adjustments?
Being a more budget-focused cockpit hasn’t stopped Next Level Racing working in a lot of adjustment points. You can change a fair bit to make yourself comfy. These include the height of the rear of the seat and the angle. You can also adjust the height of the front of the seat and the height of the pedals.
Next Level Racing is using a pretty unique cam system. These let you loosen the cam to allow for the various interlocking parts to be adjusted. You then tighten and lock the lever in place. The whole process is pretty easy to do once you’ve attempted it once or twice, although the interlocking segments of plastic can sometimes take a little encouragement to position themselves correctly.
I found a pretty comfortable driving position pretty quickly, and my only real issue is not being able to independently adjust the height of my wheel, which I found a little on the high side.
Ease of folding the cockpit and storing it away
One of the real party tricks that this Formula Lite Pro has is the ability to fold up and be stored away, even with your pedals and wheel attached. Well, it didn’t really disappoint in this area.
I followed the instructions and it starts by undoing all of the strapping, followed by lowering the pedals, before the adventurous part of folding the seat and racing wheel down. This was a little awkward due to the heavy Logitech wheel, but simple enough.
You then fold the seat onto the wheel, and the wheel in on itself before wrapping the whole cockpit up like a big, badly wrapped Christmas present. This process took all of around 2 minutes, and is all pretty streamlined.
There are wheels on the rear of the frame to help you roll the cockpit around in its folded-up form. Although it feels pretty light when adjusting various parts of the cockpit, it is considerably heavier when folded up.
It’s also pretty long when fully folded, simply because this is an F1-style cockpit designed to be low and long. As a whole though, this process was actually easier than folding up some bulky wheel stands.
How well does the Formula Lite Pro perform?
Now, I want to talk about the really important bits, which is how this cockpit performs. I’m going to start by quoting Next Level Racing’s website, which states that it can be used with direct-drive wheels up to 10Nm of torque.
So, to test this, I installed both a MOZA R12 and my Logitech Pro Racing Wheel, as you can see in this review. During this gameplay, I had my peak torque set to 8Nm, and you can see a fair bit of wobbling going on.
I think a lot of this was due to the weight of this Logitech racing wheel, as it was far less wobbly with my MOZA R12 set at the same force feedback strength.
It wasn’t so much the force feedback and torque peaks that made the wheel deck shake, but more the force of my inputs as I leaned on and pulled on the wheel. You can see the forward and rearward rocking in this gameplay.
The rest of the frame was incredibly sturdy in terms of handling the force. I noticed no real flex side to side and no movement when pushing pretty hard on the Asetek load cell brake pedal. The way the lower pedal part of the structure is designed really prevents any forward or rearward movement when pushing on the pedals, and I was impressed.
The only thing I really noticed when pushing hard on the brake pedal is that the rear of the seat flexed a lot. This is due to the all-fabric design with little support running through the middle.
None of this movement detracted from my gameplay, and neither did the racing wheel. It was only when watching the footage back that I saw how much the racing wheel was moving, and during gameplay, I didn’t notice this at all. Again, I do think this movement was down to the Logitech Pro Wheel being a bit of a chunky boy.
Final thoughts: Should you buy the Next Level Racing Formula Lite Pro cockpit?
So, wrapping up this review, would I recommend this Formula Lite Pro? Well, in a nutshell, yes. I think this is a really practical solution to providing a very good formula-style driving position. It’s comfy while you’re racing, albeit tricky and not very dignified to climb in and out of. It’s more than sturdy enough, and I was brave enough to run my direct drive wheel up to 8Nm, and things didn’t fall apart.
I think the biggest praise I can give to this cockpit is that a lot of sim racing hardware that I review gets put back in its box and stored away for months at a time until I next need it. This is a cockpit that is currently folded up in the corner of my cupboard, and I am sure that it will see a regular amount of race time over the coming months.
Technical Specifications
Review written by Felix König
