BMW reveals a gaming steering wheel from the same one used in its GT3 race cars

BMW Motorsport SIM Racing presented spectacular world premieres at its digital BMW SIM Live event, taking the transfer of technology between real and virtual racing to a totally new level.

The BMW M4 GT3, which is set to become the new flagship in the BMW M Customer Racing range of race cars from 2022, made its debut on the iRacing sim racing platform as a prototype ahead of its first real race outing.

The steering wheel in the BMW M4 GT3 has been developed in cooperation with Fanatec and is the first of its kind to work in both a race car and a race simulator.

BMW Motorsport has collaborated with sim racing hardware producer, Fanatec, to develop a steering wheel for the BMW M4 GT3 that can be used in both a race car and a race simulator - a technology transfer, the likes of which has never been seen before in motor racing.

Absolutely no modifications are required for it to be used in the race car. The carbon steering wheel is a motorsport design, with illuminated buttons and magnetic, dual-action shift paddles also made of carbon. The fact that the hybrid steering wheel perfectly fulfils both roles was demonstrated emphatically by BMW works driver Philipp Eng at BMW SIM Live.

He entered the stage in the real BMW M4 GT3, emerged holding the steering wheel, inserted it into the simulator, and promptly completed a number of laps in the car's virtual counterpart. Extensive tests allow the BMW Motorsport engineers to constantly monitor the durability of the steering wheel in real racing situations. It will be available from Fanatec in the first half of 2021.

As with the BMW M8 GTE and BMW M4 GT4 before it, BMW Motorsport has worked very closely with popular sim racing platform iRacing over the past few months, in order to integrate the BMW M4 GT3 as faithfully as possible in the simulation. The difference this time is that the car is being used as a test car on iRacing even as it is being developed.

As such, the sim racers can follow the development together with BMW Motorsport, and can help drive the development forward until the final version is available on iRacing and to real motor racing customers later in 2021.

At the same time as the real car is being developed, BMW Motorsport engineers have provided their colleagues at iRacing with CAD data and photos as a reference, which they can then use as a basis when programming and designing the virtual BMW M4 GT3.

In an additional data package, iRacing received all the information on the driving dynamics of the BMW M4 GT3. BMW Motorsport engineers use the same set of data to operate the BMW Motorsport simulator, for example. In total, over 70gb of data has already been exchanged. The common goal, to recreate the actual driving dynamics as realistically as possible.