Auto not engaging

Hi recently purchased the race on bundle and am loving it.
Today i went to set up a time attack for my daughter to try so i put it on novice so it had automatic on which worked fine at first.

I then jumped on restarted a new race in manual .. all good .
I then went and started another with novice and auto gearbox and yet once on track its manual no automatic gearbox , i tried several times but since that 1st time i can not start a time attack or practice with a auto gearbox on novice.

I went and tried a championship race and was able to toggle it to auto from a F key so i know auto still actually works , its just not working when i set novice in time attacks.

any ideas ? regards and thanks in advance