Podium series expands: Bentley GT3 steering wheel. Extraordinary starts here.
Thomas Jackermeier
Member
This is the most ambitious wheel we have ever developed. We continue on our path to merge Sim Racing with Motorsport! With the Podium Steering Wheel Bentley GT3 we have made something awesome: the real steering wheel used in the Continental GT3 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Challenge car which can also be used in a simulator. The wheel you'll be able to purchase from our website is exactly the same as the one used in the real car.
This is our first wheel made with a magnesium core which is the ultimate material to combine light weight with strength and stiffness.
Another first for us is the large circular display, which is not only a treat for the eye, it also provides valuable telemetry data and information to elevate your sim racing experience to new heights. The Podium Steering Wheel Bentley GT3 is developed in close partnership with Bentley Motors Limited, and it is truly special to reach this sim racing milestone together with such an iconic brand.
Stand out from the crowd.
You’ve never seen a wheel quite like this. The spectacular circular display dominates the front face, with a stunning forged carbon bezel and CNC-machined aluminium rotaries with signature Bentley knurling.
Striking timepiece.
The included mount can be used to showcase the wheel on either your wall or desk. Powered by a USB connection, the wheel can be displayed as a clock inspired by the traditional timepiece found in the Bentley Continental GT. It can also replay preloaded race telemetry from famous laps, showing pedal and steering inputs, gear changes, G-meter, and a track map.
Our transition to become a motorsport company has just started. We are working on even more exciting products like this in order to make the Podium range the best of the best in sim racing and car racing.
Visit Bentley.Fanatec.com for all technical information. Price and availability to be announced.
- What price do you expect for this motorsport grade steering wheel?98 votes
- Below 100055.10%
- 1000 - 130012.24%
- 1300 - 150017.35%
- 1500 - 20006.12%
- 2000 - 30005.10%
- Above 30004.08%
Comments
Pressed the wrong button.
Judging from my real life wheel should be above 3k. But being produced in much much more numbers should be able to drop in the mid 2k range. Now carrying a luxury brand logo like Bentley.... Not sure if the large numbers will allow to drop in the mid 2k range. 😇
EDIT: So the QR shows better now and looks like a Krontec QR with canbus plugs. (alone it costs 400Euros)
EDIT2: Very nice wheel and glad to see that now you are more and more expanding to the motorsport manufacturing but.... What about any podium hydraulic pedals... The v3's are getting a bit old... 😇
It looks wonderfull but yet another expensive wheel that few people will be able to afford. Wheels above 500€ can already be great and bought by many customers (let's remember lots of simracers have a whee+pedals set far cheaper than 500€)
I don't like either this new habbit of showing picture of a new wheel with no price or release date, but maybe it's just me.
"The quick release (QR2) meets FIA standards, allowing it to connect to the real car and compatible FANATEC® wheel bases."
Really, wow 😮
Who cares, we are gaming, not drive real thing 🙄
You've got a really cool piece of kit there. I'm sure those who buy it will enjoy it greatly.
I was really hoping for a CS GT3 wheel around 300-600€ since the BMW wheel is already coming. Instead you went for 2 rediculously expensive wheels... Shame. Still a nice piece for wealthy people who are not racing in VR though.
Yay, more vaporware.
if you want to be a "Motorsport company", you have to produce things...not just announce them
I voted for $1300-$1500. I feel like $1300-$1800 is the range of competitor products, but those are built specifically for Sim Racing which may give them an advantage for sim racers, but we'll see. Either way, this looks like quite a compelling product and it will be interesting to see how it compares with BMW in terms of price and availability (and I'll bite my tongue on lack of info on those points). I like the 310mm size of both announced wheels. Too bad we can't hold them before purchase to see which we prefer the feel of! :)
Agree with Alexandros - would be interested in details of Podium level pedals. I would be surprised if they are not working on something.
I wanted to vote below 1000 but I can't see it, is looks amazing and suit gt driving perfectly but for 99% of people on the fanatec eco system wont be affording this. So looking at the materials etc im guessing betwwen 1300-1500 :(
Aren’t prices set based on mfg costs, r&d costs, profit margin, and consumers’ willingness to pay? A poll seems, odd.
As someone with products on months long preorder, I’d rather see this portion of the budget directed at manufacturing and supply chain instead of a product that is largely irrelevant to sim racing. I don’t need fia homologation and this wheel won’t work in my Miata so it’s a gimmick.
Same as Tristan, I want it to be below 1k so I could afford it but I know it probably will be much more than that. : (
It's to show that merging real racing and sim racing is possible nowadays, same for the BMW wheel.
Thomas might just surprise us with the price: compared to the 2021 F1 wheel this one has similar features for the electronics, the wheel construction and the shifters. Added are the magnesium hub, the backlit buttons and the display and the QR2. The range and prices from Cube Controls also set sort of a benchmark and Fanatec has been really successful at bringing better stuff to the market at steadily lower prices. Fingers crossed.
Extraneous starts here.
I'd prefer to see the improvements in build quality like the aluminium thumb wheels and optical encoders in a wheel designed exclusively for sim racing. This 'same wheel as the real car' schtick isn't needed. I can see why Fanatec might do it once to have a halo product in the line up but it doesn't need repeated.
The Podium line should simply be top quality products using top quality components - designed for sim racing. Cube Controls has got this right and have proven that customers will pay top dollar for well manufactured products without having to resort to gimmicks. Unfortunately seems Fanatec don't have the confidence to do the same.
Whats the betting it comes with a years worth of beta software and you can’t use ITM because of the jolts. Lol
@Thomas Jackermeier
So CAN Bus. Is this something that will be open for folks like me that makes replica wheels? Or are you doing something non-standard to a standard protocol to verify that an actual Fanatec Wheel is attached? If this is open, I'll convert my RB20 rim over in a heartbeat.
That's Base Firmware stuff.
You can already use the ITM in it's full glory on the BME without getting Jolts.
" The wheel you'll be able to purchase from our website is exactly the same as the one used in the real car "
is it mean the wheel will available on 27 June 2021 ?? 😍
https://ppihc.org/fans/
Finally a GT/Formula type steering wheel at around 300mm (310) with enough robustness to work with DD. I have a black F1 whit 270mm is too small for GT cars. I hope you will made some one like my black formula but whith 300mm but not too expensive like this one wil be.
Screens and Fanatec hasn’t been the best combo in the past so I see why people have some “thoughts” about this one.
Probably I’m the only one but I think the wheel is “fugly” and like @Gary already mentioned I would like to see some sim specific products instead of real world (replica) wheels with specs we don’t need in sim racing.
I am interested as a sim racer too but I guess Fanatec's strategy might work because this is in effect an exchange of access to the quality and technologies from the 'real' racing industry and against the economies of scale of sim racing. As sim racers we should see better technology at more affordable prices: but let's see what emerges.
BTW maybe I've missed something but the Bentley wheel does not seem to be labelled as Podium: might it be ClubSport (and priced accordingly?)
Didn't you read the headline of this blog post and the third sentence of the post? :D
Ha, seen it now :-)
Meanwhile the Thrustmaster SF1000 is 350 euro. Its made of carbon fibre and has a screen too.
Yes you cant drive a real car with it but unless you have several million for a racing car, its irrelevant.
This will be crazy expensive, fanatec need something similar to the thrustmaster price.
This seems like a pretty cool wheel. It's probably going to be too rich for my blood, but that doesn't matter. My Mclaren GT3 V2 arrived today and it's pretty impressive in it's own right.
Still, this Bentley wheel, along with the BMW wheel has me thinking that the QR2 is going to be pricy too. While I would like to get it, I am now thinking the parts to convert the CSL DD would cost about $1000. This is going to be an FIA approved part, and it will have to meet what ever standards that the FIA places on quick releases with data pass through. It's no longer sounding like something I'll be looking to upgrade. Oh well.
Anyways, hopefully Fanatec's Simulation division (is this going to be a thing?) will have an answer for Thrusty's F1 wheel, priced closer to what mere mortals can afford.
Is this one Xbox compatible on the Podium DD PS?
Probably not.
The amount of money being spent on branding with BMW, Bentley, FIA etc might be better spent on a expanding the software development team and finishing the podium base software. If you want to be a motorsport company great, but you seem to be pricing yourselves out of the range of the vast majority of the people that got you to this point.
Or, rather than spending so much money on branding, how about expanding their software division as you mention, and develop an API that actually allows Xbox users to utilize all of their wheel's inputs?
How on earth did you come onto the conclusion that they are pricing themselves out of the vast majority of the people that brought them in this position when they have just landed a DD for 400 USD a few weeks back 🤦🏼♂️
Anyway… let us wait and see… 😉
Racing cars don't cost "several million"