> My wheel is an (admittedly ancient) Logitech Wingman Formula Force, connected via the serial-to-usb adapter that it
> came with. Works fine in other games, such as GPL, RBR and LFS.

> Is the full version any better on this front? Is my wheel just too old to cope with this game? Do I just have to
> ignore *any* pretence of it being a sim and turn steering help on?

I never tried the demo, but doubt there's a difference between demo and
full version. I'm using a pair of USB joysticks (right to steer, left
for throttle / brake), no delay issue here, but I did enable exponential
curve on my controller software to deal with the sensitivity of some
cars. Some of the cars seem to have yaw sensitivity, but not any of the
cars players use for online racing.

I haven't heard any complaints from players using G25 or G27 type steering
wheels. Shift isn't keyboard or digital controller friendly, so you will
need some type of true analog controller (like a wheel).

You could trying adjusting steering sensitivity in the game to less than
50% (assuming 50% is linear) to see if that helps.