I use manual almost in all car's games, specially in gt series, manual give much more control of the car's hp and other things, and if I drift in automatic I don't feel very well the control of the car, I feel that there is something missing. So I use manual. For me skip from automatic for manual wasn't very hard, when I skip to manual I already had the control of the cars (very good control), but sometimes I needed to brake to reduce a gear to get power, but the brakes made me lose time, so I at that time, started to pratice at manual and 2 weeks after I was faster with manual than automatic. Manual is the way to get faster times.