F1 steering wheel is a complicated, fascinating piece of technology
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — At first glance, the Formula 1 steering wheel, a bit of a misnomer because its shape resembles a square or rectangle rather than a circle, looks like it belongs on a commercial airliner or a high-tech video game with its dizzying array of multi-colored buttons and dials. It’s such a high-tech piece of equipment, filled with so many proprietary corporate secrets and driver preferences, that it turns out that obtaining a photo of a 2026 F1 steering wheel, the type that drivers will be using in Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix, is akin to, say, asking Coca Cola for its flavor combination.
The F1 steering wheel is innovative and scientific. “The biggest thing is how complicated it is for the drivers,” Cadillac backup driver Zhou Guanyu, the only Chinese driver on the F1 circuit. The F1 steering wheel is maybe a $50,000 piece of equipment on a car that costs maybe $10 miilion or more.
The steering wheel features more than two dozen controls that surround a video display monitor that offers the driver a wealth of crucial information. But let’s start with the basics of the steering wheel you’ll see at the Miami Grand Prix. “The first thing you want to make sure is always the grip,” Guanyu said.
“You want to make sure the grip is comfortable because there’s a lot of different widths you can have. You want to make sure also the grip material is grippy enough that your hands don’t slip. “And then the second one I would say is the shift paddles because you use it a lot.
We’ve got eight gears. We’re going up and down like a hundred times during a lap. And then we’re doing 55 laps.
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