I've decided to post as a reply here, rather than making completely new thread:
I'm very fresh owner of the MOMO black wheel, so eventhough I own the driving licence (irl) more than 10 years, I'm still very slow with the wheel, compared to my mouse times (especially FWD cars of course, I know I only need more time to practice).
Plus for the same space reason I would imagine the ideal solution being like this:
(please hardcore sim fans don't throw rocks at me now)
Steering with a mouse, and gas/brake on some kind of "keys", just like keyboard keys we use, but only 2 of them, and with some reasonable yet comfortable lift - analogue sensitivity. Maybe it's just me, being a pretty good hobby piano player, but I'm sure that I could pull really fast laps with something like that. My fingers have totally uncomparably higher precision than my feet. And I believe that this is the case for most players.
I wonder what you guys think about the idea...