Driving controls
| Action | Keyboard | Gamepad | Wheel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steer | A/D or ←/→ | Left stick | Wheel |
| Throttle | W or ↑ | RT | Throttle pedal |
| Brake | S or ↓ | LT | Brake pedal |
| Shift up / down | E/Q or Left Shift/Left Ctrl | RB/LB (or B/X) | Paddles |
| Reset car onto the track | R | Y | |
| Pause menu | Esc or P | Start | |
| Change camera | C | Back | |
| Look behind | V (hold) | ||
| Brake bias rearward / forward | [ / ] | D-pad ↓ / ↑ |
Reset (R) puts the car back on the track, stopped, at the same point on the lap. Use it when you're beached in the gravel or facing the wrong way. It invalidates the current hot lap. In a race there's no penalty, but you restart from a standstill in the middle of the track, so check your mirrors first.
Other keys
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| G | Automatic / manual gearbox |
| T | Traction control on/off |
| B | ABS on/off |
| M | Mouse steering on/off (mouse X steers, left/right button = throttle/brake, wheel shifts) |
| H | Hide / show the HUD |
| Space | Freeze frame: stops everything with no menu in the way, for screenshots. C still changes the camera and H still hides the HUD. Press Space again to resume. |
| F12 | Save a screenshot (see where it goes) |
| F2 | Autopilot on/off: the AI drives your car |
| F3 | Physics readout (technical detail about the car) |
| F4 | Sound on/off |
| F11 | Full screen on/off |
Gamepad
Xbox-style layout: left stick to steer, RT/LT for throttle and brake, RB/LB (or B/X) to shift, Y to reset, Start to pause, Back to change camera, and D-pad up/down for brake bias. In the menus, A selects and B goes back.
Cameras
Press C to cycle through three views:
- Cockpit
- The driver's eye view. Your head moves with the car: it's thrown forward under braking and outward in corners, and it shakes over kerbs. The car's own mirrors show the view behind. It's the most immersive view, and the hardest for judging where the car's edges are.
- T-cam
- Above the airbox, like the TV onboard shot. You can see the whole front of the car and a long way down the road, which makes it a good compromise.
- Chase
- Behind the car. This is the easiest view to learn in, because you can see the car's angle and what's around you.
Hold V to look behind in any view. In Controls, Sound & Assists you can change the Cockpit FOV, how much the view widens at speed, and how much the camera shakes. You can also turn the live cockpit mirrors and a mirror strip across the top of the screen on or off.
The on-screen display
- Top left: timing panel
-
- Position (for example P1/2). In a hot lap, it shows whether you're ahead of the ghost. In a race, it's your race position.
- Lap number and the current lap time. The time is white while the lap is valid, and turns red once it's invalid, with the reason underneath: Track limits, Reset, Pit lane or Wrong way.
- Delta to the reference lap: green means you're ahead, red means you're behind.
- Sector bars S1–S3: purple is your best sector so far, yellow is slower.
- LAST and BEST lap times.
- Bottom centre: speed cluster
- Speed, gear, an RPM bar with a shift light, throttle and brake bars, and a steering indicator. WHEELSPIN (yellow) or LOCK-UP (red) flashes above it when the tyres lose grip.
- Bottom left: minimap
- You're the yellow dot, the ghost is blue, and the other cars are white. The red tick is the start/finish line.
- Bottom right: tyres
- The compound badge (S Soft, M Medium, H Hard) and the kilometres on this set. Each tyre's temperature is colour-coded: blue is cold, green is in the working window, and red is overheating. The bar under each tyre shows how much wear is left.
- Right: G-meter
- The dot shows which way the car is being pushed: sideways in corners, down under braking, and up under acceleration. The number is the total cornering and braking G.
- Top right: team radio
- Messages from your race engineer. Small notices like "Reset" or "Sound OFF" pop up briefly in the centre of the screen.
Race-only displays
- The start lights.
- The timing tower: position, team code, gap to the leader, tyre, and PIT while a car is in the pit lane.
- A race panel with the gaps to the cars directly ahead and behind, your penalties, and whether you've used two compounds yet.
The steering-wheel screen
In the cockpit view, the display on the steering wheel shows your gear, your delta and your tyre compound. That's useful if you hide the rest of the HUD with H for a cleaner view.