I started off my papyrus career with indy500 first on the Amiga 500 then a little bit after i converted to PC, and i loved the "analogue steer with the mouse" option. Also played Indycar 1 and 2 (prefered the handling of the first one actually) before ending up spending a lot of time with GPL...
As ThrottleBlip in the OP i also started with a joystick, (a CH Mach 1) and i didn't really "upgrade" to pedal and wheels until i was almost done with my GPL career, and i never got to the same level with a wheel as i was with the joystick. My driving style in GPL required so many tiny correction that i didn't manage to do with the wheel 
Here is the joystick... since it uses a "gameport" that is not longer supported in windows (think windows XP was the last version of Windows that supportet the game port)

The buttons are separate, so i had on button for upshift and one for downshift. the smal joystick made it easy to do lots of quick corrections, and my driving "technique" was heating up the tiers to the melting point within a few laps 
My GPL rank was pretty ok, not exactly alien-like though
Shame i never broke the 8min mark on the Nurburgring, but i'm pretty happy with most of my lap times. Perhaps Monaco and Watkings Glen are closest to the really fast drivers

Been a long time "sponsor" of Iracing, mostly driving test sessions and not really using my subscriptions worth, but lately i have done a few races again, and thinking of dedicating a bit more time to it and perhaps restart my online racing career
Still, to get better requires quite a bit of time and dedication...