Asetek Forte Formula Pro review: $649 for a wheel Asetek ships with no grips

The Asetek Forte Formula Pro is $649.00, its listing is titled a Steering Wheel, its URL says forte-formula-pro-steering-wheel, and in bold above the Add to cart button it says “Note: Handles are sold separately”. That is the whole product in one sentence: this is a formula wheel body with a 4.3-inch screen in it and nothing to hold. Grips are a second purchase between $89.00 and $109.00, so the price of a wheel you can steer with is $738.00.

Type	Formula wheel body with no grips. Asetek calls it a Steering Wheel; its own listing says the handles are sold separately
Shape and size	Formula. Diameter priced by grip: "Regular Handles: 300 mm", "LMP Handles: 300 mm", "XL Handles: 304 mm", "Suede Handles: 304 mm"
Screen	"4.3″ LCD Touch Panel", "800 × 480 pixels", "60 Hz". The only Forte Formula with one
Controls	10 push buttons, 3 twelve-position rotaries, 6 thumb wheels, 2 seven-way kinky switches, 2 rocker switches, 2 paddles. "Buttons & Encoders: All Aluminum"
Lights	15 RevLEDs, 6 FlagLEDs, 10 button LEDs, 4 toggle-switch LEDs. Asetek gives two different rotary-LED figures on the same page, 12 and 3
Material and weight	"Glassfiber Reinforced with Forged Carbon Finish", 1.16 kg bare, 2.42 kg with packaging
Quick release	"Asetek Racing™ Quick Release Included", plus "USB-C connection for 3rd party Quick Releases"
Platforms	PC, on a compatibility badge and nothing else. No operating system named anywhere on the page
Software	RaceHub, and "SimHub Support: Yes"
Price	$649.00 excluding sales tax, no discount running on 4 August 2026. $738.00 once the cheapest handles go on
Best for	Asetek owners who want a dash on the rim, and anyone whose base is not Asetek but wants an Asetek wheel

Who it’s for

Somebody who wants telemetry on the wheel rather than on a separate dash unit, and who is willing to choose grips as a second decision.

Buy it if:

• You want the screen. 4.3 inches at 800x480 and 60 Hz is the largest display in Asetek’s Forte line and neither cheaper Forte Formula has one at all.
• You want to pick the grip from the start. Regular, LMP, suede, and XL are all $89.00 except XL at $109.00, and buying the body bare means you never pay for a set you replace.
• Your base is not an Asetek. This is the one wheel in the family Asetek publishes a cross-brand route for, and it prices both halves of it.
• You want aluminum switchgear. “Buttons & Encoders: All Aluminum” is a row neither sibling carries.

Not the one if $649.00 is the budget, because $649.00 does not buy a usable wheel here. Not the one if you want the most physical controls, since the $529.00 and $479.00 boxes both carry 12 push buttons and 12 button LEDs against this one’s 10 and 10. And not the one if you need Asetek to state an operating system, because on this listing it never does.

What it costs before you can hold it

Every figure is the regular US price off that product’s own Asetek listing, read 4 August 2026, exclusive of sales tax.

Purchase	Regular	Running total	Note
Forte Formula Pro Steering Wheel	$649.00	$649.00	No grips in the box
Formula Regular Handles, or LMP, or Suede	$89.00	$738.00	300 mm on Regular or LMP, 304 mm on Suede
Or Formula XL Handles instead	$109.00	$758.00	304 mm
Cheapest Asetek base: Initium Direct Drive Wheelbase	$349.00	$1,087.00	With the $89.00 grips
Or the base it shares a name with: Forte 18 Nm	$949.00	$1,687.00	With the $89.00 grips

Pedals are on top of every line. Asetek names no base model on this listing at all, which is a difference from both siblings: their FAQs each say the product is “compatible with all Asetek Racing™ Wheelbases” and this one says nothing of the sort, publishing the third-party route instead. For what goes under it, see wheelbases.

The third-party route, and what Asetek charges for it

This is the one thing the Pro can do that the $529.00 and $479.00 Forte Formulas cannot, on Asetek’s own evidence, and it is worth reading the parts against the claim.

What Asetek claims, in the FAQ answer to its own question “Can I use a Forte Display wheel on another wheelbase than Asetek wheelbase?”: “A: Yes, you can either install a 3rd party Quick Release or use our 3rd Party Wheelbase Adapter if you want the true Asetek Quick Release experience, but haven’t been lucky enough to get your hands on one of our wheelbases yet.”

What the specification block adds, in a row neither sibling has: “3rd Party Quick Release compatibility: USB-C connection for 3rd party Quick Releases”. So the wheel’s own connector is USB-C behind the Asetek quick release that ships fitted, and a third-party half plugs into it.

What the parts cost. Both are named on this listing’s own COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS block: a 3rd party wheelbase QR Adapter at $129.00, and a QR Wheelbase Extension at $219.00. Above the Add to cart button sits a third: “For use with a third-party wheelbase or QR, the Asetek 3rd Party QR Adapter Plate might be required.” That last part links to Asetek’s global store rather than its US one, and this page has not priced it.

The gap Asetek leaves is which base needs which. Three parts are named across one page and no sentence maps any of them to a wheelbase brand or model. Budget $129.00 as the floor for a cross-brand fit and read rims and quick-releases before assuming a route exists.

The Pro against the other two Forte Formulas

	Forte Formula Pro	Forte Formula	Forte Formula Button Box
Price	$649.00	$529.00	$479.00
Grips in the box	No	Yes, Regular	No
Cheapest gripped total	$738.00	$529.00	$568.00
Screen	4.3” 800x480 60 Hz	None	None
Push buttons	10	12	12
Button LEDs	10	12	12
Diameter on Regular grips	300 mm	290 mm	290 mm
Housing	Glassfiber, forged carbon finish	Carbon composite, 2 mm woven carbon face	Carbon composite, 2 mm woven carbon face
Third-party base route published	Yes, two priced parts	No	No
Finish	Forged carbon	Orange	Black and aluminum

The row that surprises is the button count. The dearest wheel in the family has two fewer push buttons and two fewer button LEDs than either cheaper one, because the display takes the space they occupy. Everything else the three share: 15 rev LEDs, 6 flag LEDs, 3 twelve-position rotaries, 6 thumb encoders, 2 seven-way switches, 2 rockers, 2 paddles.

Watch-outs

• The name says steering wheel and the listing says otherwise. Asetek titles this a Steering Wheel, slugs it forte-formula-pro-steering-wheel, and prints “Note: Handles are sold separately” on the same screen. Every price comparison you make against a finished wheel is $89.00 out unless you add the grips.
• Two rotary-LED counts on one page. The Inputs & Controls table gives “Rotary LEDs: 12” and the addressable-LED list on the same specification block gives “3 Rotary Encoder LEDs”. The two agree on rev, flag, button, and toggle LEDs and disagree only here. Asetek reconciles them nowhere.
• No operating system is named. The badge says PC and nothing on the page says Windows. Both siblings state Windows 10 and Windows 11 outright in their FAQs. This listing has no platform question at all.
• The box list names no quick release. Four lines, none of them a QR, while the specification block says “Asetek Racing™ Quick Release Included”. Asetek fits its half at the factory on the base side, so the two statements are probably compatible, but the box list does not say so.
• The demo video is a different wheel. Asetek’s own note: “An Invicta™ wheel is used in the video – but all display features are identical on the Forte® Formula Pro.”
• Asetek’s own site is hard to read. www.asetek.com answered a plain fetch with HTTP 403 and a Cloudflare interstitial on 4 August 2026, so every figure here was read through a text proxy. Prices and stock can move behind that wall without this page knowing.

Alternatives to consider

• Asetek Forte Formula: $529.00, grips fitted, 12 push buttons, no screen. The one to buy if the display is not what you are here for, and $209.00 cheaper once both are gripped.
• Asetek Forte Formula Button Box: $479.00, the same controls as the $529.00 wheel in black and aluminum, also handle-less. $170.00 under the Pro and no screen.
• MOZA FSR2: $649.00, the same money, a 4.3-inch touchscreen, six magnetic paddles, and grips in the box. The direct comparison for what a screen costs in another ecosystem.
• Simagic FX Pro: ~$549, a 4.3-inch telemetry screen on a full-carbon 290 mm rim, Simagic bases only.
• Cube Controls CSX-3: ~$1,480, a 4-inch screen and its own USB, so it runs on almost any base rather than needing an adapter for the privilege.
• Invicta™ Formula Button Box: $1,249.99, Asetek’s own flagship and the wheel in the Pro’s demo video. Not covered here yet.

Price the base and the grips before the wheel. Wheelbases covers what goes under it and steering wheels sorts the category by shape.

Sources

www.asetek.com answered curl with HTTP 403 and a Cloudflare “Just a moment…” interstitial on 4 August 2026, so every page below was read through the r.jina.ai text proxy on that date, at HTTP 200. Byte counts are the proxy’s rendering. Every quotation above was verified against those bytes, with one reading convention: the proxy sets each spec label in bold markup directly against its value with no separator, so spec rows are quoted here as “Label: Value” with the markup dropped, and one quoted sentence carries a part name that is a link in the bytes. Prose quotations are character for character.

• The wheel: Forte Formula Pro Steering Wheel, $649.00, 62,201 bytes, carrying the price, the “Note: Handles are sold separately” line, the stock line “In stock and ready to ship”, the full specification block, the COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS list, the five-question FAQ, and the four-line box list.
• The two siblings: Forte® Formula Steering Wheel at $529.00 and 59,612 bytes, and Forte® Formula Button Box (Black, Aluminum) at $479.00 and 61,663 bytes.
• The grips: Formula Regular Handles, Formula Regular Handles w. suede, and Formula LMP Handles at $89.00 each, and Formula XL Handles at $109.00. Three of the four end their compatibility note “Formula Button Boxes and Formula Wheels.” and the LMP set ends it “Formula Button Boxes and Wheels.”, which is a wording difference rather than a different fit.
• The catalog: Asetek’s Steering Wheels category, 54,333 bytes, and its second page, 54,081 bytes, which together serve 22 products and print their own counts, “You are viewing 11 out of 22 products” and “22 out of 22 products”.