Haven't checked the printed manual, but the iManual has a brief description.

http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...hift-assistant

 

The big dial in the middle of the dash is my gear shift assistant. Shift at redline.

 

+1

I always thought that all it took to tell me when to shift was the Tach, until I took my first DE course. Then I had the instructor yelling in my ear when to shift.

 

If you are looking down at your tach, you're either:

#1 Going straight
#2 Going too slow

Lights can be perceived a little easier, using peripheral vision...

... soft eyes, right?
Exactly!

 

I use the sound and feel of the car plus the tach. If the car didn't have a tach like old beetles when the car felt maxed out in gear and sounded like it was straining too hard you upshifted. Old beetles were great to learn to learn on.

My question related to why the shift assistant wasn't lighting up as mentioned in the owners manual (imanual says the same thing). The answer I have gotten is you need to hit 5,000 RPM to activate it which you're not supposed to do until the engine is broken in.

 

You have to drive the car very aggressive for it to work....

 

I did not use it on the track and would recommend not to use it... you will know when to change gears. Rev-matching is a blast but something that happened to one of the other drivers with MT and myself was the clutch pedal getting stuck, revs high and not going anywhere. Hard to explain but it was like the car was telling us not to try a more aggressive start off the line...