[Monday]
Thanks, good advice. I have a consistent time on the Spa daily QT. Will use AT and compare.
[Now]
I tried AT and I was perplexed after getting a slightly better AT lap within 10 minutes of trying. The big kicker was that sector 2 was a full 1.0 seconds faster!
It seems I have developed at few shortcomings with MT.
- My downshifts were too aggressive nullifying any advantage - easily corrected.
- AT allows you to concentrate more on the brake and throttle and the clean transition between the two. Unconsciously, it allowed me to get a better maximum for the mid-corner speed. Correcting that was harder since braking on the limit is much more hectic for my brain and fingers.
The net is that the experiment led to a significantly faster MT qualifying time. I can attribute at least 1.0 seconds of the gain to the AT/MT experimentation. My MT lap is now faster in all sectors.
Once again, thanks for the suggestion.
And for the wider AT topic - "Are the top drivers using MT?" An emphatic YES! At Spa/Gr.2 the AT mode drops to 2nd gear, not 1st gear, at the hairpin and the bus stop. In the replays all of the fast drivers were shifting to 1st gear strongly suggesting they are using MT and not AT as displayed.