F1 26 Wheel Settings Guide for Every Platform

You went looking for F1 26 and found a DLC instead. That’s the story this year: Codemasters built the 2026 season into F1 25 as the 2026 Season Pack, launched on 3 June, with the next full game arriving in 2027. This means you’re getting the same menus and same force feedback model paired with new cars.

This leaves your wheel setup in an odd spot. Everything you dialled in for F1 25 carries over and still works, but the cars it was built around are gone. The new cars are lighter, have shed a chunk of downforce, and come with two new buttons that need to be mapped on your rim.

This guide covers the lot on PC, PS5, and Xbox: a baseline that works on any wheel, calibration step by step, brand presets from Logitech through to Asetek, and the bugs and patches that have been catching people out since launch.

Image Source: EA

Force Feedback With the 2026 Cars

First, the reassuring part is that your F1 25 wheel settings carry straight over when the 2026 Season Pack loads, and the settings menus haven’t changed. If the wheel felt right before the update, it still does here. The cars are another story. They’re smaller and lighter with around 15% less downforce, and DRS is gone, replaced by Straight Mode for the wings and Overtake Mode for the battery boost. You’ll press Straight Mode two or three times every lap, so button mapping matters.

Force feedback is your only physical connection to the track. The game converts tyre slip, steering load, kerb strikes, and aero changes into torque at the rim, so your hands catch a slide before your eyes do.

That signal comes from two layers: your wheel’s software (G HUB, Pit House, Fanatec’s tuning menu, Simucube Tuner, etc.) and the in-game menu. If you get the balance between them wrong, you run into clipping, where the wheel hits maximum output and stops telling the difference between a heavy load and a light one.

The 2026 cars change less here than you’d expect. Reviewers who drove both generations back-to-back found the difference subtle, mostly feeling reduced grip through medium-speed corners rather than a new feeling through the wheel. Your F1 25 numbers are still a good starting point. What’s changed is the workload per lap: wings to open and a battery that supplies half the car’s power and needs managing.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Maxing in-game strength. The downforce model clips the signal long before 100. You gain weight and lose information.
2. Doubling up on the damper. Damping in your wheel software plus a high in-game Wheel Damper feels like steering through glue. Pick one layer, ideally the software.
3. Mismatched rotation. If your base says 900 degrees and the game says 360, your steering ratio is a mess, and no other setting can rescue it.
4. Copying a YouTuber’s numbers without checking their hardware. A driver on an 8Nm Logitech running strength 90 and a driver on a 25Nm Simucube running 60 can both be right. Torque decides what those numbers mean, so copy the reasoning and adjust the values for your base.

Image Source: EA

In-Game Calibration and General Settings

Before touching the game, update your wheel’s firmware and drivers, then plug the base directly into your PC or console.

Step 1: Create a profile and map your buttons

Go to Settings, then Controls, Vibration & Force Feedback. Select your wheel and save a custom profile so the default stays untouched. Then give the button map 10 minutes, because the 2026 systems demand it. Put Straight Mode and Overtake next to each other, since you’ll often open the wings and boost within the same second. Map the pit limiter somewhere you’ll find it under pressure. And check whether Overtake is set to toggle or hold; toggle gives you one press for on and one press for off, sidestepping the hold-input bugs some drivers hit in the previous game. If your wheel has spare buttons, MFD shortcuts for brake bias and differential save you fumbling with the stick mid-race.

One more for newcomers: turn on automatic ERS management while you learn. Managing deployment and active aero while racing other cars is a lot, and you can switch to manual once the wings feel like second nature.

Step 2: Match your rotation

Set 360 degrees in your wheel software and 360 in-game. That gives you one-to-one steering, and it’s the number Fanatec’s official settings target, too.

Step 3: Calibrate steering and pedals

Use the test bars to confirm full lock both ways and full pedal travel. Keep every deadzone, linearity, and saturation value at zero if your gear is in good shape.

Two exceptions. On a gear-driven wheel like the Logitech G29, add a 1% steering dead zone to stop the cogs jittering left and right down the straights. And if the game registers brake input while your foot rests on the pedal, raise the brake dead zone to somewhere between 1 and 5% until it goes quiet. A dragging brake costs you time on every straight without you feeling a thing.

Step 4: Set a baseline and test it

Start with Strength 60 to 75, On Track Effects 20 to 30, Rumble Strip Effects 20 to 30, Off Track Effects 5 to 15, Wheel Damper 0 to 5, and rotation at 360. These match our F1 25 wheel settings guide because the force feedback model is unchanged.

Then run 3 laps in Time Trial. Hit a big kerb, and if the impact feels flat, drop Strength by 5 to 10 because you’re clipping. If the wheel shakes on the straights, add 2 to 3 Damper. If painted kerbs and sausage kerbs feel identical, nudge On Track and Rumble up until they don’t.

Image Source: Steam

Platform-Specific Tips

The pack behaves differently across PS5, Xbox, and PC, and this year the gaps are wider than usual because several wheel fixes arrived through patches after launch. Whatever you race on, keep the game updated before you touch a single setting.

PS5

Update the firmware through your brand’s app or via PC if your wheel needs it. Set 360 degrees in the software and in-game, and run a short, direct USB cable to the console. One known issue: force feedback can drop out when you restart in Time Trial on direct drive wheels. Codemasters has it on the community-raised issues list, so restart the session before assuming your base has died.

Xbox

Rotation has been the story here since launch. Several wheels ignored the in-game rotation setting entirely, and G920 owners needed close to a full turn of the wheel for a normal corner. Patch 1.21 fixed the G920, and patch 1.23 sorted various Thrustmaster wheels, with one catch: on Thrustmaster bases, rotation must be set to Auto on the wheelbase itself for the in-game setting to apply. If your Thrustmaster still won’t turn properly on Xbox, check that first. The T598’s rotation issue goes deeper and won’t be fixed in F1 25 at all. Codemasters says it’s working with Thrustmaster on a fix later in 2026.

Also, confirm your steering wheel is Xbox-licensed. With Fanatec, PlayStation support is built into the wheelbase and Xbox support into the steering wheel, so a PS-licensed base with an Xbox-licensed rim gives you one rig for all three platforms. Logitech’s RS range works the same way: an RS 50 base for PlayStation paired with an Xbox-licensed rim covers everything.

PC

Install the latest driver and build your F1 profile in the wheel software before launching the game. Plug the base into a motherboard USB port rather than a front-panel one, and try another port if inputs lag or drop. Modern bases default to 1000Hz polling, and there’s no reason to touch it. Keep a controller profile saved as a backup so a detection hiccup doesn’t end your evening.

Image Source: Steam

Brand-Specific Presets

None of the major brands published new charts for the 2026 pack, as they didn’t need to. Fanatec’s official F1 25 settings are still the live reference, and the same applies across the board. The full per-base tables in our F1 25 guide carry over as they are, so use the quick references below, run the in-game baseline from step 4 unless a row says otherwise, and check what’s new for your brand since launch.

Logitech G29 / G923 (G HUB)

In-game, run the step 4 baseline. The G923’s TrueForce adds engine and surface vibration through the rim and is supported in the pack.

Logitech RS 50

These are the numbers we’d run on an RS 50 for the pack, tested on the DLC since launch.

Fanatec

Follow Fanatec’s official chart. The values below are the common thread; NDP, FFB and INT shift slightly per base, so grab your exact column from the F1 25 guide’s tables.

If anything feels heavy, lower in-game strength before touching the base. New since launch: patch 1.20 added Fanatec SDK support on Xbox, so LSB and RSB buttons and LED displays now work on compatible rims.

Thrustmaster (Control Panel)

The T818 is the exception: Thrustmaster advises 100% gain with the weight adjusted in-game.

MOZA

Pit House does the heavy lifting. Open the F1 game profile and run the one-click firmware update first.

In-game, MOZA wheels prefer lower strength than most, around 40 to 60.

Simucube

The software is now called Tuner, replacing TrueDrive, so update if you still see the old name.

Esports-level Simucube setups run every in-game effect at zero and let the base torque carry the information.

Asetek

Per Asetek’s guide. Keep firmware and game patches current if anything misbehaves.

Fine-Tuning and Advanced Adjustments

This is where the settings videos start contradicting each other, and these contradictions are useful to be aware of. Ask three fast drivers for their numbers, and you’ll get three different answers, each right for their hardware. Torque decides what a number means, so the ideal ranges below are split by base rather than by preference.

Strength

Start near 60 and protect the detail; that’s where the lap time lives. On a high-torque base, there’s a case for 70 rather than 60: the added weight buys confidence to lean on the car at the cost of a little clipping. If the wheel feels lifeless and you drive better with weight in your hands, go up. On an 8Nm base, you can run far higher because the hardware never reaches the same forces.

Rotation

The default, matched in both layers, is 360. Dropping to 310 buys quicker hands in slow corners. Going up to 400 trades wheel flicking for a wider, more precise arc. A lower setting quickens direction changes, and a higher one smooths your inputs. Pick one and give it a full session before judging it.

Effects

The zeros down the high-torque column aren’t a typo. At that level, a bump you feel is a slide you might miss, and the base torque carries the information alone. On TrueForce hardware, on-track at 35 gives you the sensation of the surface without drowning the signal. Effects only change what the wheel spends its energy telling you, so decide whether you want information or sensation and set them accordingly.

Linearity

This one exists to fix pedals, so leave it at zero on decent hardware. Brake linearity softens the first portion of pedal travel, which helps on basic spring pedals where small inputs are hard to control. On load cell pedals or better, zero is the answer.

Damper

A last resort, and the table agrees: even at the esports level, 2 is the ceiling. If you’re making lots of small corrections mid-corner and the wheel jumps around, add 1 or 2 in-game or a touch of software damping. And know the trap: on some bases, if your software damper is zero, the in-game damper does nothing at all, no matter how high you push it.

Image Source: Steam

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Some problems in the 2026 pack have nothing to do with your numbers. These are the ones that send people digging through menus for a fix that was never there.

Chasing settings that don’t exist anymore

Plenty of older guides still tell you to turn off Understeer Enhance. Codemasters removed it in F1 23, and it hasn’t come back, so if you’re scrolling the menu looking for it, stop now. The same goes for settings advice written for F1 24 or earlier, because the menu has been reshuffled since. If a guide doesn’t mention F1 25 or the 2026 pack by name, treat its menu directions with suspicion.

Blaming your hardware for a game bug

Force feedback dropping after a Time Trial restart on direct drive wheels is a known issue Codemasters is tracking, and players have reported vibrations fading or cutting out in online lobbies when someone’s connection lags. Both look exactly like a dying wheelbase, and neither is. Before you box anything up for a return, restart the session, check the community-raised issues thread, and test the wheel in another game. If it misbehaves everywhere and you’ve ruled the game out, that’s when it’s a hardware conversation, and SimRigSupport can help you diagnose it before you spend money on a replacement.

Letting a patch quietly undo your work

This year, the game is a live platform, with fixes landing every few weeks, and some of them touch wheel behaviour directly. If the steering feels different after an update, don’t start retuning from scratch. Reapply your brand profile, confirm rotation still matches in both layers, and only then revisit strength and damper. Nine times out of ten, the feel comes back with the profile.

Skipping the update and wondering why advice doesn’t work

The reverse trap. Most of the Xbox rotation fixes covered earlier arrived through patches, so a guide can be completely right and still useless on an old game version. Update first, then tune.

Getting the Most From Your Setup

One thing no menu can fix: where you’re sitting. Before Maxim touches a single setting, he puts his feet on the pedals and slides the seat until he’s comfortable, because wheel distance and pedal reach shape your steering smoothness more than any five points of strength ever will. If your elbows are locked or your knee is fighting the wheel rim under braking, you’ll make ragged inputs all day and blame the force feedback for it. Sort the seat, then the software.

That’s also the honest case for trying gear before you commit to it. A wheelbase that feels perfect in a YouTube review might not suit your desk, your legs, or your space, and the 2026 cars, with their lighter feel and busier laps, reward hardware you’re genuinely comfortable on.

SimStaff offers free consultations and rig rentals, so you can find the setup that fits how you drive before fully committing to one.

FAQs

Is F1 26 a separate game?
No. The 2026 season comes to F1 25 as the 2026 Season Pack, a DLC released on 3 June 2026. Newcomers can buy the 2026 Season Edition, which bundles the base game with the pack. Codemasters’ next full F1 game arrives in 2027.

Do my F1 25 wheel settings work in the 2026 Season Pack?
Yes. Everything carries over automatically, and the menus are unchanged. The one job left is button mapping, because Straight Mode and Overtake Mode need buttons you can reach without loosening your grip.

What wheel rotation should I use for the 2026 cars?
The baseline, matched in your wheel software and in-game, is 360 degrees. Esports-level drivers run anywhere from 310 for faster hands to 400 for smoother inputs, so treat it as a preference with a sensible default.

Why does my Thrustmaster ignore the rotation setting on Xbox?
Set the rotation to Auto on the wheelbase itself, which lets the in-game setting take over. Patches 1.21 and 1.23 fixed most of the affected wheels. The T598 has a deeper rotation issue that won’t be fixed in F1 25, with Codemasters and Thrustmaster promising a fix later in 2026.

Why did my force feedback suddenly stop?
If it happened after restarting a Time Trial on a direct drive wheel or mid-race in a laggy online lobby, it’s a known game bug rather than your hardware. Restart the session. If the wheel is dead in every game, check the USB connection, update the firmware, and then start asking hardware questions.