It depends how you define manual.
The old days
Up until the early 1990s, Formula 1 cars had a traditional manual gearbox with an H-pattern shifter and a clutch pedal. Drivers had to physically move the lever, balance the clutch, and blip the throttle — all while fighting the car through corners at 300 km/h. That’s why onboards of Senna or Mansell look like chaos in ballet form.
The modern era
- Since 1991 (when Ferrari introduced paddle shifters), F1 has moved to semi-automatic sequential gearboxes.
- Drivers change gears by flicking paddles behind the steering wheel.
- No clutch pedal, no gear lever — but yes, the driver still decides when to upshift or downshift.
So… manual or not?
- Not manual in the road-car sense (no clutch pedal, no stick shift).
- Not fully automatic either (the car won’t change gears for you).
- F1 gearboxes are a hybrid: manual input via paddles + electronic execution in milliseconds.
The drivertalk take
Are F1 cars manual? Technically, yes — the driver controls every shift. But it’s not “manual” the way your dad’s old hatchback was. It’s a weaponised version of manual: lightning-fast, seamless, and built for one thing only — to make the car faster out of every corner.
