Yes I noticed there is a 'spring' between the physical (logitech) wheel and the graphics on screen. GPL and N2003 use this too, to quote a Papy dev for 'FF purposes' and probably to smooth the otherwise extreme forces that could occur with a rigid steering rack and Uber Arnie (tm) driver.

wouldnt it be better to achieve the same with some (unavoidable) clipping and maybe a very short damping filter to smooth out the spikes and glitches instead of causing us to steer where we dont want to ?

I don't know.. I seem to recall that I suddenly noticed this 'spring' in LFS with the previous big patch (the one months ago).. Not sure if it was there before..

Of course in reality there will be some flex in the steering rack, but I don't know if you should model that this way. It doesn't seem to get in the way and LFS still responds very quickly.

I tend to believe in '1:1' copy of the actual physical wheel though, no springs/dampers in between..