Count me in if needed (european time zone) 
From my testing (Sense of speed/PI class/type of shifting/street furniture - in the 3rd point) it looks like the gap between A vs M vs M+C is smaller than in FH4. Of course it still varies between cars/tunes and you still usually don’t have control of gear selected.
And I still stand with my point that there should be no “gear change time penalty”.
I use arrows for gas/brake/steering, Q handbrake, S clutch, X/C gears. With that combo it doesn’t “lock up” keyboard like when using arrows + button A.