Ahhh, I see you are much more into your racing kit than I am, I like the look of it
The elastic band method is just a very cheap alternative, used for the few occasions when a sequential is needed. I am surprised that it wasn't added as an optional extra for the G27. Even the Driving Force GT (the lower end of the range), has a build in sequential.
Whatever you use ........ as you said, you would have thought that the keyboard would work at all times.
The only other thing I can suggest is learning about remapping the keys (buttons) in the actionmap.xml file.
On the assumption that when you start the game, the wheel that you choose is the G27, then you would edit the G27 part of the xml file. In previous games each wheel had it's own xml file, now they have combined them into one file, and started using virtual key codes for the keyboard, the button are the same though.
1/ Connect your wheel and stick
2/ Control Panel > Devices and Printers > Select and test your wheel
3/ Note all the button numbers down when you press a button
4/ Just say you had 6 buttons, and you now know which each one is, Windows have numbered them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
5/ Normally the computer numbers them from Zero at the hardware level, so those 6 buttons will actually be numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
6/ In the xml file the hardware number will be used, not the Windows number
Example :-
Code:
<Action actionName="DRS">
<Axis axisName="di_button_7" type="uniDirectionalPositive" deadZone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
The DRS is button 7, but when you test in Windows devices it would show as button 8
7/ So you open the file -
F1 2015/actionmaps/action_map_preset_win.xml
8/ Search the text file for 'G27' (which is line 2615)
9/ Listed below is all the mappings for the wheel.
The equivalent of the ESC key is the PAUSE function. In this case you can see is mapped to button 0, but as I said earlier, Windows knows that button as button 1.
Code:
<Action actionName="Pause">
<Axis axisName="di_button_0" type="uniDirectionalPositive" deadZone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
So if on your setup, you have checked in Windows and the button you want to use to Pause (bring up the menu), which is ESC on the keyboard, is button 17
You would take 1 away from that number (16), and edit the mapping, as this :-
Code:
<Action actionName="Pause">
<Axis axisName="di_button_16" type="uniDirectionalPositive" deadZone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
That's just one button covered, but you might need more than that remapped. It just depends on whether the other keyboard keys work, we know ESC doesn't work for you.
An alternative to get the ESC key working, might be to add the virtual keyboard code for the ESC key to the G27 part of the xml file.
This is the start of the G27 section of the file :-
Code:
<ActionMap actionMapName="logitech_g27" deviceName="{C29B046D-0000-0000-0000-504944564944}" priority="5">
Adding the virtual ESC key code under it might get the ESC key working :-
Code:
<ActionMap actionMapName="logitech_g27" deviceName="{C29B046D-0000-0000-0000-504944564944}" priority="5">
<Action actionName="Pause">
<Axis axisName="vk_code_0x1B" type="uniDirectionalPositive" deadZone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
Good luck