@BLE,
That’s the beauty of the lap times with the reasonably priced cars. The leader board is made up of many different drivers, and even with many different drivers, you can see the trend. The automatic drivers end up at the bottom of the pack. The fastest lap times with the automatic are below some of the most inept drivers who drove the reasonably priced car with the manual transmission, which goes to show you that even if you barely know how to drive a stick shift, you probably have an advantage in lap times over the same car with an automatic. I suspect this has to do with the fact that if you’re driving a manual transmission, you get to pick the gear you’re in. If you’re driving an automatic, the car chooses the gear. When you’re driving an automatic, there is only so much the Stig can do to help you improve your lap times. When you drive a stick shift, you have an additional tool in your kit to improve your lap times.
Let me be the first to acknowledge that this particular advantage has no relation to street driving. Nobody should drive on the streets like people drive on a track. I only brought this up as something that I find interesting.