Sparco HYPERGRIP Gaming Gloves

As part of the Battle of the Racing Gloves 2019, we’re going to review Sparco’s HYPERGRIP Gaming Gloves.

Just like the F33L SR2 gloves, the HYPERGRIPs are an affordable set of gloves to better conserve your alcantara racing wheel or to add to the feeling of racing.

The 0th Impression

Sparco states to process orders within 3 business days. They also want you to contact them if processing takes more time.

But neither of both was fulfilled: The order took 5 business days to be processed, and they didn’t respond to my email.

Update 2019-04-16: Support does exist and was very enthusiastic and very friendly in the end. Maybe it was just some bad luck initially.

Unboxing

Unboxing was fun. The gloves come in a reusable net bag, and you get a free sparco sticker per item. Who doesn’t like decals?

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1st Impression

The gloves look nice at first glance. However, the seams and material appear even cheaper than the F33L SR2’s.

Especially the seams that connect the velcro patch with the glove seem highly sensitive, and it probably is suboptimal that the velcro has a very pointy end – the latter is sewed with just one stitch.

Fit

I ordered two sets of Sparco Hypergrip gloves – one in size 11, and a second in size 12.

The size 11 ones would fit tightly, but the seams are rather stretched and appear to tear soon.

So 12s for me, which fit well on every finger and the palms.

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Test Drive in Real Car

The gloves are very light and feel quite good. Thanks to the velcro strips, the gloves sat well all the time on a 30 minute test drive.

But it also become apparent that the grip level is actually worse than driving without gloves at all.

Giving the gloves some more time to warm up and to build up grip, I did some more test drives. But only to find out that it did not improve.

Touchscreens …

On the product page, Sparco states:

The gaming gloves have “touch-sensitive” thumb and index finger fingertips, […]

Yet, touch-screen support in the HYPERGRIPs is non-existant. In fact, I was not able to get a single reaction on my extra-protected mobile device.

You can, however, simply open up the ends of the pointer and thumb. These flippable ends are actually too small in diameter, and feel very tight on your fingers; that’s a feeling you may like or not.

Either Sparco’s product text is just not written well, or plain wrong.

Recommend or Not?

Hmmmmmm. I would really love to praise these gloves – but can’t.

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The look is nice. The feel on the hands is nice. The size is exactly right. And there’s a nice Sparco decal and a promo code in the package.

But the seams are weak (especially the velcro seams). And most importantly, grip is virtually non-existant – I have more grip with my bare hands.

If you are just looking to save your alcantara steering wheel, these gloves may be okay.

But if you are looking to improve your hand work by amping up your grip with these gloves, then no: No recommendation, sorry.

For a ranking of gloves, go to Battle of the Racing Gloves 2019.