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At least some of the cars in F1 have seven forward gears plus reverse.
Don't know exactly what the rule is at the moment but I think that fully automatic gearboxes are legal, if they would be of benefit is another matter.
In the past the teams used manual upchanges but often had downchanges programmed in for each corner. It is the on the downchanges that it used to be possible to over-rev or "buzz" the engine. The result of which was a damaged engine.
Would be very surprised if some of the top teams didn't have the whole gearchange sequence mapped out for any given circuit so it could be programmed in for the perfect lap. That type of thing would work well in qualifying, especially given the new single lap format. In the race however there would be a lot of different variables going on that would make it more difficult to programme. The driver would have to have much more input.
You can bet that the lower budget teams would still do all the gearchanges with the paddles. In fact I recall the Forti team, which raced in the mid nineties, only had a CART or motorbike style sequencial gearbox - they couldn’t afford anything else. In fact that car used to bounce around on the track a lot like Indycars do. The better cars of the time like Williams and Benetton appeared to be much smoother, almost on rails in comparison.
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