responsive (at first) but it's always best to drive a few laps and see if you can get used to it. I often find that most of the very quick drivers have the setting between 0% and 15%.

The Axis Sensitivity page is very important as it effects how your steering wheel and pedals actually work while driving.
The X axis is your steering axis so if you were to set it to 0% you would have to use lots of steering lock to get around even the very easy turns and if you were to set it to 100% you would hardly have to use any lock to get around tight turns. It is an important setting and can vary from wheel to wheel but it's best to start with 50% and if it feels too sensitive you can lower it and if it isn't sensitive enough you can increase the setting. For the Thrustmaster Ferrari F1 wheel I had to raise this setting to 75% to achieve my best lap times, but for the Microsoft FF and Logitech Momo I found 50-55% to be the best setting.

Assuming you only have two pedals (and no clutch pedal) then two of the remaining axis on this page will be used for throttle and brake and all of the others are irrelevant. In other words if the game recognises your throttle as Y axis and your brake as RZ axis then the remaining axis (RX, RY, Z etc) will not be used at all in your game setup and changing them would have no effect on the game.
When you originally calibrated your pedals from within the game it would have displayed the axis in the function assignment display so you should already know what your throttle and brake pedals have been recognised as (normally Y for throttle and Z or RZ for brake) but it doesn't matter if you don't. This is because both pedals should be set to the same sensitivity as each other so you can simply adjust all the remaining axis sensitivity settings if you want to be sure you are adjusting your pedals - as I mentioned earlier; adjusting the axis settings that your game doesn't use won't make any difference.
Both throttle and brake should definitely be set to 50% Sensitivity as this is 'linear' (like a real car pedal) and as a result should give you more accurate control of your braking and accelerating. Using throttle as an example - if you lower the Sensitivity setting you will have to press the pedal too much to get the required acceleration and if you increase it there will be too much power too early when you press the throttle and there will be a much greater chance of spinning. I have tested this a lot and I am almost certain that both pedals should definitely be set to 50% Sensitivity - I actually used to use 75% Sensitivity for this setting (a few years ago) but when I adjusted to 50% it definitely improved my lap times.
So set your throttle and brake axis Sensitivity to 50%, and if for some reason you aren't sure which axis are been used for throttle and brake simply adjust all of the remaining axis to 50% (except X axis which will be your steering axis, although you might have this set to 50% anyway).

'Axis Deadzones' are areas in the axis travel which won't give any response - so if you have a 5% deadzone on the steering axis (X axis) you will have to turn the wheel for around 5% of it's full lock before the car starts to turn, and if you have a 10% deadzone on your brake axis you will have to press the brake pedal down for the first 10% of it's travel before the brake actually starts to do anything. This is very bad and as a result it is recommended that most people using a steering wheel should set all deadzones to 0% (I think they are set to 5% by default so they need to be adjusted to 0%).
I have all deadzones set to 0% with one exception - the steering axis on my Logitech Momo. The Momo rattles slightly in a straight line - normally this wouldn't be too bad but because I use 0% Speed Senstivity it means the car is very sensitive and can start going off line at high speed quite easily. As a result I use a very small 1% deadzone on the steering axis (X axis) so there is a tiny section of wheel travel which doesn't do anything. This isn't really noticable turning from left to right so it doesn't effect the accuracy of my driving. Most people won't even need 1% though and should set all deadzones to 0%.

If your steering wheel has Force Feedback you can also set that up in the game. This is another setting which is mainly down to personal preference.
I use the 'Medium' setting for 'Force Feedback Effects' (because I don't want the wheel to shake too much) and -60% Force Feedback Strength. Some steering wheels require a positive Strength setting to produce resistance (such as the Microsoft wheel) and others require a negative Strength setting to produce resistance (such as the Logitech Momo). You will know if your steering wheel is set up incorrectly because the Force Feedback will be trying to 'pull' you around the turns rather than resisting your steering inputs - when you have this kind of problem it is easy to spot, and to fix it you should just change your Force Feedback Strength setting to the opposite of what you were originally using (e.g. from a negative value to a positive value, so if you were using 50% you would change it to -50%).
Force Feedback does not seem to effect lap times - I have driven many laps with and without Force Feedback and I was not faster either way. Maybe the 'feedback' is not as helpful as it sounds when it comes to keeping the car under control at speed. It is nice to have the option though.

With your steering wheel set up correctly at least you can be confident that you have everything good and ready to start driving laps without worrying about changing things at a later date. There are some steering wheel settings which I think are simply down to what suits each individual person but there are other settings (such as the 50% Sensitivity for pedals) which I am almost certain are correct if you want to drive as well as you can.


5. Driving Aids.

On the subject of the driving aids of course I say turn them all off, every single one of them, but I know some people have reasons for using particular aids;

'Invulnerability' is useful if you want to drive Hotlaps (pushing very hard) without the risk of damaging the car if you push too hard - you never have to stop for damage and if you make a mistake and crash you can simply get back on track and drive round to the start of your next quick lap. It is also useful for basic online races - lag can often make opponents appear as if they have stopped on track (even though they haven't) but if you drive into the back of them the game often assumes you have just hit someone and it causes damage to your car - using 'Invulnerability' prevents this and it also means you won't be out of the race at the first corner (due to the lack of a rear wing).

'Clutch Assistance' is another aid which is more for convienience than anything else - if you spin and stop on the circuit it will keep the engine running without you having to react quickly and press the clutch or neutral buttons. I've gotten used to pressing the clutch button on my steering wheel so I rarely stall now but I can see why some people would rather use it.

Manual gear changing was one of the hardest things for me to learn when I started playing driving games - it is very difficult when you first try it so a lot of people are probably put off and decide to stick with 'Auto Shifting'. Manual shifting is definitely worth the effort though.
It seems to be one of those things where once you have it perfected you never forget it and it can easily be applied to any racing game - for me personally it is much more interesting using manual gears and I really enjoy it, manual downshifting can also help shorten braking distances slightly (due to engine braking) and if I try to go back to automatic gears it feels very strange (as if there is nothing to do while driving). It's certainly one of the most challenging parts to racing simulations when you first start out but once you learn to shift gears manually you will get more enjoyment out of the game and you'll wonder how you ever used to drive with automatic gears.

In some online sessions the host disallows all driving aids completely - this never bothers me but there are often people who join the session and they say they need 'Clutch Assistance' or 'Auto Shifting' to be able to drive properly... because of this I think it would be better if those aids were allowed as standard because they don't offer any advantage (if the host is trying to keep a level playing field). None of the three driving aids mentioned above really improve your lap times in any way so I don't see what the problem is when someone wants to use one of them. All of the other driving aids available were actually made to help the car's behaviour on track and improve performance. I could never use any of them myself but there is one driving aid which is either praised and criticized on a regular basis...


6. Traction Control.