Rack and Pinion

[mep]

I know it would be worth the while to do it on the sim first.
It may feel so wierd... the worst would be an understeer situation
where the driver would have to come back through the slow part
to right the car.

You have this on games like F1 Challenge/r-factor. Without it its very hard to drive good laps with your keeboard.

[mach11]

Though this seems to be a very intersting concept... when you consider the input given to the steering at F1 speeds... this would cause immense wear on the rack...

I might be wrong... pl do correct me....

[countersteer]

IIRC, Indy cars incorporated a variable ratio rack in the past couple of years. These cars don't have power assist so the variable ratio rack was introduced to help the smaller guys (and girls) especially on the road/street courses.

[Woteva]

Though this seems to be a very intersting concept... when you consider the input given to the steering at F1 speeds... this would cause immense wear on the rack...

I might be wrong... pl do correct me....

Variable ratio by itself does not effect the wear on a rack, it has to do with the system design as a whole. The loads on a steering system in an F1 car are typically less than exist in almost all road cars.