robmol, yep, definitely worth a try, just the disclaimer that you might get hooked like gimpymoo and GraveYard have (and myself, but that was years ago now
)
Clutch, there's always a certain level of auto-clutch, basically stops you stalling, so if you're in the pits (whilst not actually being serviced) you can just shift into first and accelerate and it'll go no problems. The issue being that's not particularly fast, for the race start you want to be in 1st with some revs (almost bouncing off the limiter really) before going on green, so yeah you'll need to hold the clutch at that point.
It's a bit tricky to get off the line as it will spin up but my method is basically hold it just before the limiter/slowly bouncing off it, then on green I drop the clutch, initially go full throttle but then feather it a bit as the wheels start spinning to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Took about 5 minutes of practice just going around the track doing practice starts up into 2nd and then back to stationary, repeat over and over again, but I'm fairly happy with it for now, could be more consistent but not lost any spots on the grid and gained one twice