If you are trying to save iRacing FFB per car and finding the process less intuitive than it used to be, Season 3 is the reason. The Controls Profiles update changed how per-car force feedback is stored and retrieved, and the transition was not accompanied by much documentation. As a result, a lot of drivers who know what they want cannot work out how the new system replaces the old one.
Also See
➡️ iRacing Control Profiles: No More Juggling CFG Files
🏁 iRacing Forums: Community Discussion on Per-Car FFB
What Changed in Season 3
Before the Season 3 build, iRacing stored per-car force feedback values in car-specific configuration files in your documents folder. The system worked through the app.ini file and related overrides. Although it required some manual file management, most drivers understood it. You set the FFB multiplier for a car, loaded a different one, and each car remembered its own value without much friction.
Season 3 replaced this approach with Controls Profiles. A Controls Profile is a named configuration snapshot that saves your full control layout: button and axis assignments, sensitivity curves, steering ratio, and force feedback values stored together under one profile name. The intention is to make managing multiple wheels and controllers easier, without maintaining separate configuration files for each setup. For drivers who switch between a direct drive wheel for road racing and a different controller for ovals, the new system is a genuine improvement.
However, one important capability did not carry over with the new system: automatic per-car profile switching. iRacing does not detect which car you have loaded and apply a matching Controls Profile. That step is manual. Whatever profile is currently loaded is the one you race with, regardless of which car you are in. That single change is responsible for most of the confusion since the Season 3 build launched.
How to Save Force Feedback Per Car
The approach that works within the Controls Profiles system is to create one profile per car, or one profile per car-and-FFB-level combination if you tune differently for different track types.
Start by opening the iRacing options menu and going to the Controls tab. At the top of the page you will find the Controls Profiles section. Select Add to create a new profile. Give it a name specific enough that you will recognize it at a glance when loading into a session. A name like “BMW M4 GT3 FFB 65” or “Dallara F3 High DF” is clearer than a generic “Road Profile 1” when you have several profiles listed.
Once you are in a test session with the car you want to configure, set your FFB multiplier and any other values you want locked to that car. Then return to the Controls Profile section in Options and save the profile. That profile now stores the FFB value for that car. The next time you run it, load that profile before you join the session.
The extra step compared to the old system is real, but the workflow is predictable once you build it into your pre-race routine. Treat the profile check the same way you treat your tire and fuel check before each session. After a few sessions, selecting the right profile takes under ten seconds and stops feeling like friction.
Why the System Feels Like More Work Than It Should
The frustration most drivers have is not with the Controls Profiles concept itself. It is with the absence of automation. A driver who races six or seven cars regularly may build up a collection of eight or ten profiles once they start tuning per-car and per-track. Each session requires a manual profile selection before joining, and if you forget, you drive the car with whatever settings were active in the previous session.
Profile naming is also constrained by a character limit, which makes it harder to write fully descriptive names when your car collection grows. These are smaller friction points compared to the missing automation, but together they add up over a busy racing week.
iRacing has acknowledged the community feedback. A developer has been actively posting on the official forums asking drivers to describe their specific per-car FFB workflows in detail. That kind of directed engagement suggests that automatic profile switching is something the development team is evaluating. For now, however, the manual selection step remains.
Using Marvin’s Awesome iRacing App as a Workaround
Because automatic per-car profile switching is not yet built into iRacing, a community-built tool called Marvin’s Awesome iRacing App has become the go-to workaround for drivers who want per-car FFB without the manual step.
The app monitors your active iRacing session and switches settings automatically when it detects a car or session change, including force feedback values. The initial setup requires time to configure the mappings between cars and their preferred profiles, but once that work is done, the switching happens in the background without any further input. For drivers who rotate across multiple car classes in a single evening, or for league nights that run different categories back to back, this removes the manual selection step entirely.
Marvin’s Awesome iRacing App is free and available through the iRacing community. Because it operates by reading and writing to your iRacing documents folder rather than connecting directly to the simulation software, it sits outside the official iRacing ecosystem. It has a long track record of reliable use across the community. However, as with all third-party tools, iRacing’s support team does not cover it.
Which Approach Fits Your Workflow
If you race a small number of cars and are comfortable adding a quick profile check to your pre-session routine, the native Controls Profiles system works reliably. Name your profiles clearly, build the habit, and the friction disappears after a few sessions.
If your car rotation is wider, if you run endurance events with car swaps, or if you simply want per-car FFB to be automatic, Marvin’s Awesome iRacing App is the more practical solution for now. Most drivers who have tried both report that once the app is configured, they stop thinking about FFB profile management entirely.
The Controls Profiles system is a better foundation than the old CFG file approach, even if it currently requires more manual steps for per-car FFB management. The community feedback on automatic switching is clear and well-documented, and the developer activity on the forums suggests the gap will close in a future build. In the meantime, both approaches described here work reliably.
