At time of writing the only Fanatec wheel I have available to plug into my CSL Elite wheelbase is a Formula wheel which is brilliant for serious racing but no good for rallying, drifting, generally mucking around so I wanted a budget rim to let me do that. The choice was between 3 options, the standard P1 rim at 150 euros, the WRC rim at 200 euros and the BMW rim at 300 euros. I am answering one question - having now received the new WRC rim, does it feel like 200 euros well spent?
Short answer, yes. I hate getting bad value for money and I wanted a normal wheel to do normal things at an inoffensive price and for me I judge my purchases by how much I want to return them and get the cash back instead. Having used the Formula V2 for months now I was expecting to be disappointed by aspects of a wheel that’s half the cost but I’m not feeling that one bit here, so as far as I’m concerned that’s job done.
The paddle shifts look and feel great and the alcantara material on the rim itself feels no different to that on the formula V2 rim which is nearly twice the price. The quick release mechanism I understand is a brand new approach and is very simple, and whilst I still prefer the slide collar action of the clubsport quick release on my formula wheel, I can’t fault the new twistlock system at all, it does the job very well and is no less convenient than my formula wheel and is easy to mount and remove.
I expected to be swapping from WRC rim to Formula rim quite frequently so I’m glad it’s this simple. From what I’ve seen of the original P1 wheel the quick release isn’t very quick at all so this is one thing that absolutely justifies the 50 euro price difference between the P1 and WRC wheels.
All the buttons and controls on the face of the WRC rim feel perfectly fine, they don’t feel cheap and you get a set of extra buttons to swap the originals with. Sadly the button caps and sticker set Fanatec also sell for Clubsport rims aren’t compatible with this wheel so you can’t go all out and customise it all the way.
At this stage let me butt in and say that If you’re interested in the WRC wheel or any other Fanatec items then it would be lovely if you used my affiliate link to travel there as anything you buy credits me with the sale and helps out loads. To be clear, I haven’t been sent this wheel from Fanatec or asked to review it, I do this off my own back with my own money and I'll always give it to you straight.
So naturally the first thing I found when I slotted the WRC rim on my wheelbase was that it didn’t work. Turns out I needed to update my fanatec drivers by going to the WRC wheels product page and downloading the newest drivers, so make sure that if you buy the WRC rim, you download the newest drivers from the WRC rim page, not your wheelbase page. Once I’d done that and updated the wheelbase firmware, it was good to go, but for a second I did think I had received a dud.
Up until now if you happened to go straight in for a formula wheel with your wheelbase and don’t have a circular rim, you’ve only had the P1 and BMW rims to pick from. The P1 is hard to stomach spending 150 euros on as it’s the stock bog standard wheel with no flash or style, and the BMW rim is double the cost at 300 euros and has been around so long that it feels and looks dated. By taking the P1 wheel and tarting it up with a more premium feel, appearance and theming along with a proper quick release they’ve presented a good value option for people like me who want a general purpose rim for cheap. The P1 wheel is pretty much obsolete now this wheel exists and considering I could see this being sold for more like 230 to 250 given the improvements and the WRC branding which you know sometimes is used to justify higher prices, I think 200 is perfectly fair.
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