Manual › Chapter 09
Race day
Reminders and alarm, check-in, the live pit wall, driver swaps, flags, stops and refuelling.
What changes on race day#
Until yesterday the plan was a document. Today it becomes a living thing: it anchors to the real start time, re-anchors itself at every driver swap, slips when something happens and warns whoever needs to know.
The Race tab has five sections: 🏁 Live, 📡 Monitor, 📋 Plan, Setups and 📊 Debrief.
Before the start#
Starting the race#
When the race actually starts, somebody presses start. From that moment the times are anchored to now and the first stint becomes active.
If it is pressed by mistake, ↩︎ Reopen race goes back.
For whoever drives#
Your next stint#
Live shows the countdown to your swap, the check-in time and the ✔ I confirm I will be ready button.
Confirming matters: from that moment the reminders, the alarm and the phone call stop chasing you. If you do not confirm, the system keeps at it.
You can confirm from three places:
- The app, in the Live tab.
- The companion, from the banner that appears 60 minutes before check-in.
- Telegram, with the button inside the reminder message.
The alert ladder#
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| 60 min before check-in | The confirm banner appears in the companion |
| 30 / 15 / 5 min before | Push notifications on your phone, plus Telegram if connected |
| 8 and 5 min before | A phone call, if you enabled it |
| 5 min before | If you still have not confirmed, the alert goes to the whole crew |
Escalating to the team is not a punishment: it is what gives your teammates time to cover while the race is still savable.
Night mode#
🌙 Night mode (guaranteed alarm) opens a full-screen page with the time, the countdown and a looping siren.
On iPhone it rings even in silent mode, because it uses media audio rather than notification audio. The screen stays on.
Two buttons: ✔ I'M AWAKE — STOP ALARM and the exit from night mode.
For whoever is on the wall#
The driver swap#
When a driver pits and another comes out, the plan notices on its own: the companion sees a different customer ID on track, closes the active stint, opens the new one, re-anchors every later time and notifies the squad.
If you need to do it by hand there is Pit now, which closes the running stint immediately and rebuilds the times from there.
Replace driver changes who is at the wheel in the running stint — for instance when the scheduled one did not wake up and somebody else gets in.
Logging an event#
Report event puts on record what happened and lets the consequences fall onto the plan.
| Event | |
|---|---|
| 💥 Incident | With expected repair time |
| 🔧 Technical problem | |
| 🚩 Penalty | |
| 🟡 Full Course Yellow | |
| 📝 Note | For the log only |
You enter the repair minutes and the stint delay; 📣 Log and notify the crew sends everyone the notification with the new times.
The live pit wall#
The 📡 Monitor tab is what the wall watches for the whole race. The data comes from the companion of the driver on track, and updates in real time.
Race status#
Session time remaining, absolute and class position, lap, last and best time, fuel, team incidents against the race limit, simulator time (with a moon when driving at night) and the iRacing session number — click it to copy, whoever wants to spectate needs it.
Driver on track#
Who is at the wheel, how it is going, and their tyres.
Standings#
The full leaderboard, with a class filter and a relative view. For every opponent: position, gap to the car ahead and to us, laps, last and best time, laps in the current stint, number of stops and the lap of the last one, plus the trend — how many seconds a minute we gain or lose on them.
From the number of stops and the seconds spent in the lane you can infer whether they changed tyres.
Event radar#
What is happening around us: pits, off-tracks, incidents, cars gone from the track, laps lost, flags, penalties. Filtered for relevance — what matters is who is ahead of or behind us, not distant traffic — grouped into Pit, Positions, Trouble, Weather and flags.
Flags and penalties#
Every flag the simulator raises, the right one in the right place. When one is aimed at our driver it appears at the top with the reason and what it means, so you know at once what to say on the radio:
- slow down and give the time back (served immediately on track, not in the pits);
- drive through: go through the pit lane without stopping;
- wrong way: turn him round now, the next one is disqualification;
- mandatory repair, back of the field, lap waved, free pass, warning.
Incidents get a name instead of a score: off track, loss of control, contact with the wall, contact with a car.
Refuelling#
How many litres to take at the next stop, and why.
The panel counts the laps remaining, the ones covered by the fuel already on board, and how many stops are left. When less than a full stint remains it says so plainly: from there you splash and go, because a full tank is weight paid for laps you will never run.
Anatomy of a pit stop#
From your own real stops: how long you are stationary in the box, how long in the lane, how consistent you are between best and worst, and above all what a tyre change really costs and what a driver change costs.
When there are still too few stops to compare like with like, the number is marked (not isolated) instead of being passed off as certain.
Changing weather and tyres#
The simulator exposes no radar and no forecast: what is here is the measured trend minute by minute — precipitation and track wetness — plus the projection at the current rate.
Out of it comes the call:
- no change in sight;
- conditions are moving, still too early;
- change tyres at the fuel stop: the two moments coincide;
- an early stop is needed;
- do not change at the next stop: the track turns later.
Lift & coast#
Saving fuel lengthens the stint but costs tenths every lap: it only pays if it removes a stop. The panel works it out with this race's numbers and says whether it is worth it, and how much less fuel per lap would be needed to add one lap to the running stint.
Tyre wear#
The simulator gives real wear only at the pits. Here what is measured is how much the car is sliding lap after lap — cornering g, degrees of steering per g, corrections — and the estimate is calibrated on the tyre report from the last stop.
Until there has been a stop with a report, the panel declares it: "not calibrated: for now this is only a trend".
Connection#
When the car slows down the first question is always the same: is it the driver or the line? Here you find latency, channel quality, frame rate and how long since the last data arrived.
Our cars on track#
If you field more than one car in the same race, they all sit here together, with the gaps between yours. A faded row is a companion that has stopped transmitting — it may be the network, not necessarily the car.
The automations#
Some things happen without anyone pressing anything.
| Automation | What it does |
|---|---|
| Driver swap | Detects the swap on track, closes and opens the stints, re-anchors the times, notifies |
| Tow | When a tow ends it logs the event with its duration and slips the stints |
| Incident thresholds | Warns when the team counter approaches the race limit |
| Disconnection | If the driver on track stops responding for more than 45 seconds, an emergency notification goes to the whole crew |
The wall also warns about two mistakes that cost seconds:
- tyres armed but the plan does not call for them — around 18 seconds thrown away, tell them to remove it from the pit menu;
- the plan calls for tyres but the driver has not armed them — tell them before they enter the lane.
Showing the race to people without an account#
🔗 Pit wall link (read-only) creates an address that shows the live pit wall to anyone, with no account and no way to change anything. Useful for spotters, friends and the team channel.
You can revoke it whenever you like, and the panel says how many times it has been opened.
Ending the race#
🏁 End race, with confirmation. From there you move on to the debrief.