Binding Ctrl+Shift+F

The brake dead zone and brake sensitivity change how does the game react to press the break pedal or a button on your joystick. It will not change the way the game react to your keyboard steereing. To get rid of the annoying assist, is to turn it off, or reduce it to minimum. I am not sure, but probably there is a config file that defines the distance to the curve to break, and the speed.

There are of course some game specific pads, there are also universal gaming keypads, like Razer Nostromo or Logitech G13. On both of them movement (i.e. equivalent of WSAD) can actually be done with just the thumb. I'm not sure how useful is that, but it's definitively different than WSAD.