Game in OP is Sega Super GT, player is from youtube and claims it's been one of his favorite games for decades so he must be quite experienced with it, he doesn't play sims afaik but his channel is nothing but playing old arcade racing games with wheels but those were designed for wheels too.

He manages to get ~31/32s on the first track here playing with a thrustmaster and says he cannot get these results with his second wheel (cheaper logitech). So even with a wheel, not all are equal. That's like FPS pros who weigh their mice or the mechanical keyboard autism, chasing those milligram and millisecond differences. I'm inexperienced with racing games and playing with a controller, can only get it down to 35s. I cannot countersteer/drift like he does. I could maybeee get it down to 34 but I doubt I could ever reach 31 with a stick. I'd be really impressed to see footage of someone perfecting that race with a stick but I couldn't find any.

Oher tracks, or other games like Daytona are much worse because more sharp turns where drifting is obviously the key. Daytona is interesting because you can really see how obvious it is, just read reviews from the console ports and everyone agrees it plays so much worse and cars are like sliding on ice. I'm curious if Sega even bothered increasing the timers for the console ports? Because those timers are brutal.

Would keyboard be better, split in the middle or?