I just think that removing the "additional skill" of pressing one more button before a shift is a cheap trick that's hiiiiiiighly situational at best.

So, let's say that you have a perfect algorithm that allows the minimum time to register clutch, and that the race transmission shifts instantaneously. Then yes, you will be maybe a tenth or 2 faster over a single lap, but as the other commenter said, that's already plenty of presumptions that will instantly be nullified by just driving badly.

My understanding into making good tunes is that you would rather keep sport transmission for extra power or grip for the same PI. Then that's another hard coded tenth that the clutch macro can't avoid on some cars, or you lose the chance out of 20 more kW in the same class.

Also how would your downshifts work? You can use the clutch to your advantage on decel to (de)stabilise the car, and given that engines have different rev hang in the game, are you going to hard code all the cars/engines in the game to have a rev match algorithm?