THRUSTMASTER FORMULA T1 DRIVING SIMULATOR CONTROLS by Thrustmaster

Reviewed by Andrew See

Thrustmaster are a company that specialise in highly realistic "hands on" interfaces for PC simulation games. Their earlier products were designed for users of military flight simulators, to allow the user to achieve a similar "hands on throttle and stick, or HOTAS operating environment" to that experienced by real military pilots. They did this by creating ergonomic joysticks and throttle columns, with a button resting under every finger, freeing the user from clumsy keyboard controls.

Now, for those of us who are enthusiasts of the popular Indycar Racing, by Papyrus, or Formula One Grand Prix (known as World Circuit in the USA), and future supported driving simulations, they have released the Formula T1.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

The unit itself, has a heavy duty plastic steering wheel, of a similar size to that in a real F1 car, which is mounted in a heavy metal housing. Also in this housing is a small shelf to the right hand side of the wheel, with a gear shifter mounted in it. The shifter is roughly 8 cm high, and is close enough to the wheel to allow a shift with both hands on the wheel.

This unit needs to be attached to your desk, and they suggest 2 methods: Suction cups, four of these are provided, unfortunately, my desk is wood, and these were not appropriate. The second method is with strips of velcro, also provided, but this is not ordinary velcro, once this stuff is joined, it is almost impossible to separate. Since I didn't want this thing permanently stuck on my desk, I had a better idea, I got a large sheet of glass from an old fish tank, suction cupped the unit to that, and put that on my desk, with my monitor resting on the glass slab, holding everything in place. This worked fine, and is an easily removable solution.

Connected to this unit via a Y-Cable, is the pedal unit, again in a solid metal housing. This unit has an accelerator and a brake, and an extra bay for a future addition of a clutch pedal, if a game supported it.The pedals themselves are plastic rollers on steel arms, with very heavy springs providing resistance.

HOW DOES IT FEEL?

I'll start this section by saying that I was previously using a conventional Gravis analog joystick, which has numerous disadvantages in driving sims compared to the T1. I was using the X-axis of the joystick for steering, and the fire buttons for accelerator and brake. I was using auto gears.

The feel of the wheel itself is excellent, the heavy response, with greater resistance the harder you turn. The wheel is just the right size, but could be a little bit thicker, but overall great. The wheel is mapped to the X-Axis of Joystick 1. The advantage over the joystick, is much finer control, especially when overtaking into narrow gaps, and when trying to minimise skidding in corners on ovals.

The shifter is switched, rather than "gated" like a real gearshift. This means that you simply tap it back to go up a gear, and tap forward to go back down. This is simple to use, and really adds another dimension to the games. With the joystick, I just didn't have enough buttons (or fingers) to manage manual shifting, and I couldn't get used to using the Y-Axis for accel/brake. The T1 unit makes shifting easy and intuitive. The shifter is mapped to buttons 1 and 2 of joystick 1.

The pedals feel nice and heavy just like a real car, you have to put a fair bit of pressure on them. I found it a bit difficult to use my right foot for both braking and accelerator, mainly due to the length of travel in the pedals. So I found that the best way to use the pedals is "go-kart" style, one foot on each pedal (F1 driver Mika Hakkinen uses this method). I also found that the pedals were pretty hard to use barefoot, you really need to be wearing shoes to use them (so I had to buy a pair :-)

The pedals are mapped to the X-axis of joystick 2, but unfortunately if you are hoping to also use them as rudder pedals in your flight sims, (as I was) the axis is reversed, and thus they will have the opposite effect to what is required in a flight sim. It *is* possible to mount the unit backwards and slightly upside down, allowing proper rudder controls, but this isn't really satisfactory.

The pedal control probably gives the single greatest advantage over using a joystick with fire buttons for accel/brake, because since the pedals are using a joystick axis for control, it gives proportional throttle control, allowing the driver to "feather" the throttle in tricky corners such as the hairpins at Laguna Seca. The old way, using a fire button on my joystick, I had a "binary" throttle, ie: It's either "off" or "flat to the floor", and nothing in between, this often causes you to spin or fishtail as you accelerate past the apex. With the T1 you just feed in the juice gradually, keeping the car just on the limit of traction as you accelerate out of a corner.

But, as I found out later, the pedals have a serious design flaw, which we will read about in a minute.

Now we have the most important section...

WHAT WILL IT DO FOR MY LAPTIMES?

Fortunately, over the last few months I have kept a good record of my fastest laps at various tracks in ICR. Here are some of my best times with a joystick and T1. Times are in min/sec except ovals, where average speeds are quoted (mph).

                  Joystick            T1
                  --------            --------
Laguna Seca       1:07.478            1:06.584
Long Beach        0:56.640            0:54.924 
New Hamp. (oval)   180.588             182.735
Phoenix (oval)     173.815             176.399

So you can see that there is clearly a difference, and although they may seem slight, the real advantage comes against online, human opponents. One of my regular modem opponents (hi Andre!) refuses to race me on anything but ovals now (where there is very little gearshifting) because he thinks I have an unfair advantage on road courses. Heck, I probably do, but thats why I bought it. Possibly the most difficult track in ICR is the Portland road course, because it is twisty and narrow, with large grass runoff areas. With a joystick, it was very difficult for me just to keep the car on the track, with the T1, I can get highly competitive laptimes here.

YOU MENTIONED A PROBLEM...

About 2 months after buying the T1, I was in a long (40% distance) modem race at Michigan superspeedway, with my other regular modem opponent (G'day Al), I had my throttle foot flat on the floor at over 240mph, then "SNAP". The springs on the throttle pedal had given way. The pedal remained flat on the floor after I had lifted my foot. (Imagine that happening in real life :-) I would have tried to fix it myself, but the base unit is sealed with rivets, rather than screws, so it is not user- serviceable at a practical level. I took the pedal unit back to the shop, happy that it was just a one off faulty unit, and they gave me a replacement. One month later, racing at Elkhart Lake (congratulations Jacques Villeneuve-Future F1 champion) the throttle springs snapped on the replacement unit.

It seems that the throttle pedal cannot sustain extended periods of being flat to the floor. This is a major design flaw, and I reluctantly returned the unit for a refund. I really liked it, but I didn't want to drive back to the shop every month for a replacement. I'll wait for the T1 2.0

I have since found out by reading various Usenet groups, that the problem is fairly common, and can be stopped, or at least delayed, by placing a wooden board, or other object under the pedals, and thus limiting the pedal travel. This makes me ask, why didn't thrustmaster design it that way in the first place, and why don't they send out an after-market attachment to registered owners to fix the problem?

With the imminent release of Papyrus' SVGA successor to ICR, "NASCAR Racing", I will again long for the T1, and I really do hope that they get this problem worked out, I'll be the first in line to get one.