I’m a sim racer with a passion for Motorsport, good racecraft and the tech side of sim racing. I made SIMRACINGCOCKPIT.GG as a place to share my experiences. I hold an International Class C race licence and write for sim racing store G-Performance and Motorsport resource Driver61.com
Featured image: SimHound Sim Racing Gloves
As well as a good pair of race or karting boots, sim racing gloves are (in my humble opinion) an important accessory. In my updated 2024 buyer’s guide, I’m looking at my favourite gloves (all of which I own myself). In this article, I’ll talk you through the most important features what features that decent sim racing gloves offer.
Most sim racers wear gloves in their simulator, and that’s been the case for as long as I’ve been racing. As a writer, it’s an interesting challenge to meaningfully describe the difference that wearing gloves in the simulator makes.
I’ll cover off the obvious stuff, like touch sensitivity, grip advantage and protecting your Alcantara or suede rims, but, so many wheels have rubber compound / PU grips today. Does that make wearing gloves less important?
Sim Racing Gloves Buyer’s Guide: Which are Best for Sim Racing?Quick Navigation
- SimHound
- F33L Sim Racing Gloves
- Sync-Mesh Grip M1X
- Alpinestars Radar
- Trak Racer Multi Use Gloves
- Freem
- FreeM Trak Racer Sim Racing Gloves
- Advanced SimRacing Gloves by Moradness
- Alpinestars Tech-1 K V2 Gloves
Gloves on, Gloves off – Does it Make a Difference?
Yes actually, it does. And I’ve driven with them, and without them. Reflecting on my experience, you jump in the simulator, forget to put your gloves on and drive anyway. That’s fine, as your bare hands don’t make any significant impact on rubber compound grips. They’re easily cleaned.
Gloves Off
There’s a significant tactile difference, as you can feel the buttons more accurately through your fingertips, and you get a stronger sense of the materials and quality of the wheel.
If your wheel is made from more metal than plastic or carbon fibre compounds, you’re far more likely to feel temperature differences and the texture of the materials used. My Ascher Racing McLaren Artura Pro is mostly aluminium and initially cold to the touch – which I quite like.
Gloves On
Wearing gloves is a game-changer. You may lose some awareness of the manufacturing detail of the wheel, but tactile differences are negligible. Paddles and buttons still communicate their “feel” and there’s no additional concern around accidental presses or mis-shifts. The biggest difference is grip. Wearing gloves improves the grip between your hands and the sim racing wheel exponentially.
Of course “grip” is a subjective thing. Grip around the wheel has nothing to do with holding the wheel tighter. It’s the opposite.
Wearing gloves gives you more grip by adding friction between your palms, the imprinted grip features on the gloves and the wheel. The outcome is that you have to do far less work holding the wheel, which means you’re far less likely to experience tiredness.
With gloves, you can keep a suede / Alcantara rim in much better condition, for longer – I have wheels I’ve owned for years that still look brand new because I’ve never driven them with bare hands. The grease and sweat (gross, I know) can build up in the Alcantara and the result looks pretty bad.
It also ruins the resale value of the sim wheel:
Here’s the list of my preferred gloves, with the revised, externally stitched SimHound Gloves and the F33L SR2’s (below) being my two favourites.
SimHound Gloves
I’m on my 3rd pair of SimHound Gloves. For me, they fit perfectly, with a tight, comfortable fit all around my hand.
Simhound uses an elasticated fabric construction that is snug-fitting with a touchscreen-compatible forefinger and a nice grip pattern on the palms. This philosophy has reigned true with every iteration of their gloves which feature external or internal stitching, whichever you prefer:
Something Simhound gets very right is in the material construction. The gloves have the right amount of stretch in the outer fabric providing a nice sensation of support when you’re holding on to the wheel.
The material doesn’t stretch quite as the F33l gloves do (mentioned next), but nonetheless, they’re grippy and supportive, which I prefer.
The fabric is hard-wearing – they last a long time. Here they are being tested (at Sebring, in rFactor2, in the Radical)
Previous iterations of this design had a slight overstretch between my thumb and forefinger – Simhound seems to have resolved this, my latest blue pair fit like a glove. (Sorry for the cliche!)
F33L SR2 Sim Racing Gloves
If you’re looking for something ultra-lightweight, then F33L’s SR2 washable sim racing gloves are worthy of consideration. Here are mine:
I chose these gloves because of the bright, bold pattern and the fact that they’re on offer from Sim-Lab, a manufacturer that needs no introduction to a sim racer.
When you slide them on, the inner lining feels smooth on your hands. I’d class my hand size as “medium” but actually, the smaller glove size is the better fit for me. You always want to have a tightly fitting glove, or you’ll lose that all-important tactility – this is how we approach glove fit in Motorsport, too. The tighter, the better!
The velcro strap is super strong, once you’ve got these on, they’re not going anywhere. As you can probably see from the photos, they’re co-branded by F33l and Sim-Lab, as I understand it Sim-Lab acquired F££L a few years ago. High praise indeed.
The F33L gloves have a slender, ergonomic design that fits snugly. They have touchscreen patches on the forefinger and thumb (as all sim racing gloves do now – this used to be a unique selling point!
I’d say most of the time, the smaller sizes will probably offer the best fit. Even while gripping the wheel you can see (pictured above) how the material stretches to my hand without offering significant resistance. With all that grip on the palms, there’s no question of their suitability for a sim steering wheel – they’re just, really, really good gloves.
If you’re buying F33L gloves, make sure you’re going for the best fit. There’s nothing worse than gloves that are too big! Measure the circumference of your hand. During the first use, the anodized rubber may take a few hours to adjust to your hand, but you can adjust the fingers for optimal comfort. Here’s the official glove sizing chart from F33l:
The F33l SR2s are available in sizes S to XXL, refer to the size chart to find your perfect fit. Sim-Lab also provides a 12-month warranty period, which for gloves is exceptional value. According to the label, they’re washable at a maximum temperature of 30c.
One small issue with the F33Ls is the grip print on my right forefinger started to peel away after a year or so of use. I expect that the warranty would cover this; so I’m not particularly worried about the issue.
Grip M1X Sim Racing Gloves: Sync Mesh
The M1X sim racing gloves by Sync Mesh are the most “Motorsport-like” gloves in this list. The palms are made from a blended mix of 65% PU and 35% nylon. I had to take a look at their website to make sense of the material, as I’ve never come across a material quite like this.
The palm material has piqued my curiosity. It’s a very lightweight material with an almost suede-like finish. Digging a little deeper, this moisture-wicking material is a real selling point of the M1X. Sim racing can be hot, sweaty work. Sync Mesh has designed these gloves with a big emphasis on breathability and grip – something I fully appreciate.
If you’re a sim racer looking to achieve that authentic, Motorsport feel, the shape and cut of the M1X gloves are perfect. The size that suited me the closest was the medium size, and the colour variant you see in the pictures is the “Blaze” option, in a deep red. There are other colours available too:
I’d urge you to use the glove sizing tool on the website, and note that these gloves are just a tiny bit looser fitting than the SimHound gloves. Technically, they’re very impressive and I expect to see more good stuff from SyncMesh in the future.
Alpinestars Radar Gloves
Cycling gloves are perfect for tactility and staying cool. The best gloves are very thin, like these Alpinestars Radars. Price-wise they’re slightly cheaper than sim racing gloves. Given their cycling pedigree, they offer the same level of grip as any glove for sim racing, making the Radars a fantastic all-round option.
It’s worth pointing out that sim racing glove designs are based on lightweight cycling gloves. You get the breathability and lack of thermal retention, and any sweat is still wicked away from your hands. There’s support in all the right places, and the Radars give you a nice snug fit. This makes them ideal for working with complex steering wheels.
Trak Racer Multi-Use Gloves
I was pleased to finally get my hands in (another cliche there, sorry!) Trak Racer’s “Multi Use” sim racing gloves. I opted for this quirky-looking design:
Fit-wise, these gloves are tight (I picked medium) and snug once you have them on. The elastic wrist is quite tight, so it takes a bit of pushing and pulling to get them comfortably on.
The palms have a very thin, breathable “non-slip” material that is also perforated. They’re so thin that you can feel pretty much everything through them, which I think is a positive. Mine have a skull printed on the palms, which is a cool design touch.
The gloves are also touch-screen friendly and with the breathable material, you won’t be sweating after long driving sessions.
For this price, you’re getting an excellent deal on the Trak Racer Multi-use gloves, and if your main purpose is to protect your Alkantara steering from regular wear and tear, these are some pocket-friendly options for you.
If, like me, you have slimmer hands (no laughing at the back, please) then these will work just fine. But if you have larger hands, getting them on will be a slight challenge.
Freem SIM21 Racing Gloves
Freem is a well-known high-end Motorsports manufacturer that has dipped its toes into the sim racing world. They’ve come up with the higher-end, higher-priced Freem Sim-glove, the SIM21.
This is a photo of my FreeMs from last year. After quite a lot of use, they still look brand new:
Freem has manufactured sim racing gloves with input from the “world’s top sim racers” and have all of the features you’d hope for grip, screen compatibility, and so on. The only catch, aside from the price, is finding somewhere that has them in stock.
They’re very light, using a thin and very stretchy fabric.
As with all items from Freem, the SIM 21 gloves are made in Italy. Freem has revised the fabrics on the palm surface with what they call “L-Grip” which is intended to provide high levels of grip on the steering wheel and wheel controls.
I found these gloves to be extremely light and breathable and, they fit very snugly, almost like a second skin. In total, they only weigh 32 grams! These are touchscreen-compatible on the index finger and thumb.
My only mild complaint with Freem’s design is that the fingers are slightly too long for my hands, and I have quite long fingers!
On a related note; Trak Racer offers custom gloves, manufactured by FREEM, called the “FreeM Trak Racer Sim Racing Gloves”
These are much the same as mine but have the shorter (more average-sized) finger cut.
They’re made from the same breathable L-Grip fabrics, and feature grip on the entire palm surface. That’s a nice feature. If you want a FreeM glove but you’re uncertain about their measurements, I would be more likely to trust the Trak Racer variant.
The Trak Racer gloves are also incredibly light – 32g, which is barely anything. I wonder if you might forget you’re wearing them.
Advanced SimRacing Gloves by Moradness
I like these new gloves from Moradnesss. The Advanced SimRacing Gloves by Moradness are another comfortable pair of gloves that you can go with for your Sim racing setup.
The padded grippy palms along with pre-curved fingers ensure that you have a strong and comfortable grip over the wheel.
And with the outside seam, you can have a slightly better precision and it also helps you find your sweet spot on the steering wheel. And since these gloves are from Moradness (Daniel Morad is a professional racing driver), there’s no doubting the quality of these premium gloves.
Aesthetically, the mesh of black and purple colour with Moradness branding on the front gives a charming look to the gloves. All things considered, these are a nice pair of sim racing gloves and if you have a reasonable budget for your next pair of sim racing gloves, these come highly recommended
Alpinestars Tech-1 K V2 Gloves
If you’re after lightweight gloves with a strong grip, the Alpinestars Tech-1 K V2 Gloves are worthy of your hard-earned money. Aesthetically, you have a plethora of options here and you can choose anything from lime colour to the standard Black Targray colour.
Personally, the pair with the black and yellow colour scheme is my favourite.
As for the grip, you’ll get a textured palm and fingertips that ensure a strong grip over the steering wheel. These long-sized gloves offer a snuggle fit as you only have to slide your hand and the soft fabric will take care of the rest.
There’s a mesh material found between the fingers which can improve the airflow as well and even after marathon gaming sessions, your fingers won’t be very sweaty. Overall, a pretty decent pair for your sim racing, and you can even use them for real-life driving.
Opinion: What are the Best Gloves for Sim Racing?
Well that’s the question, isn’t it? I’ve tried all of these gloves and more (my favourite Augury gloves became obsolete and wore out in the end).
I think it comes down to F33L vs SimHound.
(left) vs F33L
(right)
It’s a difficult choice as they’re different in a few critical ways. The SimHound gloves have a more supportive feel while the F33l gloves are softer and stretch more. Fit-wise, for me, the F33L gloves are a slightly better match to the shape of my hand, but because of the grip and support, the SimHounds are the gloves I keep going back to.
Need a hand? How to Measure Yourself for your Next Pair of Sim Racing Gloves
Measuring your hands to fit your sim racing gloves is very easy. Just measure the circumference of your hand with a tape measure:
As you can see from the diagram above, measure the circumference of your hand following the path of the red line in the image. Then take that measurement and compare it to the manufacturer’s size guide.
Each size guide will be slightly different, so just because you’re an “M” for a set of gloves from Alpinestars doesn’t mean the same thing with Freem, SimHound, Sparco, and so on. I think the safer choice is always to go slightly smaller than you think you need, not larger. And always check the sizing guide on the product page!
Whatever you choose, gloves enhance your sense of enjoyment in the simulator. I recommend all drivers choose a pair of gloves and then get onto a good pair of boots, too.