New details on Fanatec's Direct Drive racing wheel

Fanatec's very first Direct Drive racing wheel solution is around the corner, as the manufacturer already teased their plans and intentions earlier this summer and the full reveal is scheduled to happen at theSim Racing Expo at Nürburgring on September 16. But sim racing fans are eager to learn more about the brand's unique approach for this foray into the pro space, so we sat down with Endor AG's CEO Thomas Jackermeier at Gamescom to talk about their present and future plans.

"There are some direct drive solutions on the market already which are ultra high-end, but at the same time they're not really fully consumer-friendly, not all of them at least", explains the Fanatec man in our video interview. "So a lot of people come to us and ask, 'ok, can we have a Fanatec direct drive?' And we looked into it and said 'yeah, why not?'".

However, Jackermeier continues, "if this will be a Fanatec product then obviously it has to meet all the typical criteria, so that means we have to have all the certificates, CEE, FCC, etc, etc, which is not the case if you have do-it-yourself solution. It also has to be plug-and-play, they also want to expect the full compatibility which is currently given with our current wheels".

In terms of engineering, Fanatec decided to ditch current components, as they "looked at what was available and we looked at how we can do it and we decided to make a solution which is basically everything built fully from scratch. We're not taking any existent motor or something, it's a complete customized solution. So actually there's not one bolt that will be found on any other motor".

"So this [development] is a little bit more intensive, takes a little more time than expected, but on the other side we have a solution which is absolutely tailored for the sim racing market, which is perfect for our needs, where you don't need any speed, you need torque, you need low cogging -well actually no cogging- it needs to be absolutely smooth, powerful, dynamic... So at the same time you want to be cost-effective, right? So we also want to bring down the cost of current direct drive solutions down, so yeah, it's quite a challenging project for us so far".

However, the CEO wouldn't commit to a price range, just teased "it's going to be above our ClubSport wheelbase [laughs]".

Other than potential torque and final specs, the main highlight of the new product is the promise of a single-box peripheral, and in this regard Jackermeier explains that "the solutions you see currently on the market, a lot of them are pretty overspec because they're made for industrial use or for general propose, so basically the electronic has to fit with many different types of motors, or the motors have to fulfil industrial proposes which are not what we need in sim racing, so by custom-tailoring everything exactly together, so we made our own motor drive especially just for this motor, and the motor is perfectly adapted to the size that we need, to the torque, the speed that we need. You can bring things down, you can make things much smaller without giving up any functionality.

"Everything together is bringing a pretty big advantage, especially when it comes to EMI radiation, because those cables, if they're not shielded, they interfere with the electronics of your PC, of the monitor, etc, so if you have everything in one box, it's much easier to control".

Watch our full interview for more on differences and advantages vs belt drive experience, devs taking full advantage of racing hardware and Fanatec's future product lineup, including cockpit products, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.