Build a race plan
Once your team exists, the next step is to build a race plan. A plan holds the race-day settings — the race-weekend schedule, race length, fuel math, fair share rule — and is where you'll assign stints to your drivers.
Start a new plan
From your team detail page, click Race plans → + New plan.
The form starts empty: race length, stop times and the rest depend on your event and your car, so StintIQ doesn't guess them. The one thing filled in for you is the Fair Share Rule, from your team's sim.
Fill in the race details
- Race name + Track — public identifiers that show up on the plan detail page and on share links. As you type the track, StintIQ suggests your sim's tracks with their layouts; pick one, or type any name you like.
- Fair Share Rule — the driving rule StintIQ checks your lineup against: iRacing Fair Share, LMU Fair Share, ACC Server Limits (your server's own limits, which you type in) or None. It starts on your team's sim's rule; pick None if this race doesn't enforce one. Warnings never stop you saving. See Fair share rules.
Set your race schedule
A race weekend usually runs in stages: the server opens, there's practice and qualifying, then the race starts. Enter the whole schedule, so nobody mistakes when the server opens for when the race starts.
- Server opens — when drivers can join the server. Practice starts here, and everyone with a seat gets a Discord heads-up before it.
- Practice and Qualifying — switch each one on or off. Practice starts when the server opens, so it only needs a length. Qualifying needs a start time and a length.
- Lights out (planned) — when the race itself starts. Every race stint time counts from here: in the stint builder, on the race-day board, in calendar feeds, and in drivers' Discord reminders.
- Race length — the race's duration in minutes, from your event's rules. To change it later, click edit on the plan page's Schedule box.
- In-game time of day — optional. The in-sim clock time at lights out. Drives the day/dusk/night badge on each Race stint. Leave blank to hide the badges.
You only type the times you know. Qualifying and lights out are filled in for you from the end of the session before them, and marked auto. Change the server-open time or a session length and the auto times move with it. If there's a break in your league's schedule (qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday, or a few minutes for the grid to form), type the real time: it switches to set manually and stays put. Click reset to go back to auto. If a time you set by hand stops making sense, say qualifying now overlaps practice, the editor tells you before you save.
Times are entered and shown in the timezone on your profile, and every driver sees them in their own.
On race day, the Green Flag button records when the race actually went green. Lights out is the plan; the Green Flag is what really happened. See Run race day.
Plans made before the schedule existed
Older plans only have a server-open time, so their stint times count from server open: early by however long practice and qualifying take. An upcoming plan like that shows a banner on the plan page and in the stint builder: "Stint times are counting from server open." Click Set schedule, switch on the sessions you have, and check lights out. Setting it also lets your opening driver confirm their stint from their Discord reminder.
If drivers already marked availability for the hour before the race, saving asks you to confirm first. The race grid now starts at lights out, so those earlier slots are cleared; practice and qualifying get their own questions on the sign-up page instead.
Choose the sign-up slot length
Drivers mark their availability for the race one time slot at a time. Sign-up slots in the Schedule box sets how long each slot is: 15, 30 or 60 minutes (30 by default). Pick shorter slots when your stints are short or drivers swap often. A 45-minute stint is hard to plan from 30-minute slots, because a driver who can do 14:00–14:45 has to either claim the whole 14:30 slot or leave it blank.
You can change it later from the Roster section of the plan page (Sign-up slots · change). Drivers' answers carry over:
- Shorter slots keep every answer. Each answer is copied into the shorter slots it covered.
- Longer slots merge answers, so StintIQ asks you to confirm first. A slot that was partly No becomes No, and a slot that was partly unanswered becomes blank, so some drivers may need to re-check their sign-up.
When a change clears or merges drivers' answers
Moving the schedule, changing the race length or switching to longer slots can clear or merge answers drivers already gave. Before anything is saved, StintIQ shows you a confirm box:
- Who will be asked to re-check. Only drivers left with something to do: new times to answer, answers that got more cautious, or none of their times left. Drivers who keep enough of their answers are just counted. If nobody needs to re-check, it says so.
- "No Discord DMs, tell them yourself" next to drivers who haven't linked the bot.
- Tell these drivers on Discord, ticked by default. The bot DMs each driver what changed. Untick it to skip the DMs, for example while you're still adjusting times; drivers still see a note on their sign-up page until they save.
You don't get a DM for your own change, but if your own answers were affected you'll see the note on your sign-up page too.
Fill in the fuel math
- Avg lap seconds — your team's expected average lap time.
- Fuel per lap — liters or gallons (per the team's fuel unit).
- Tank capacity — the car's fuel tank size.
- Fuel unit — liters or gallons.
These four feed the projection panel on the plan detail page (laps per tank, total stops, total pit time).
NRG / Hybrid
This section matches your team's sim. What you see depends on which sim you picked when you created the team:
- ACC teams — this section is hidden entirely. ACC has no hybrid energy mechanic, so there's nothing to enter.
- iRacing teams — only the Hypercar option appears (iRacing's only NRG-aware class).
- LMU teams — all three options appear: Hypercar, GT3, and LMP2.
- Other sims (rFactor 2, AC, Automobilista 2, or any free-text "Other") — all three options appear, in case your league uses NRG conventions from one of the above.
Expand the + NRG / Hybrid fold-out and pick the matching car class:
- Hypercar (LMH / LMDh) — Enter NRG per lap (%). The full 100% hybrid budget is implicit, so there's no second input.
- GT3 (LMU GT3) — Enter NRG per lap (%) and the BoP lap budget per stint (e.g. 5 laps). The effective NRG capacity is laps × per-lap.
- LMP2 (LMU LMP2) — Same shape as GT3. Enter NRG per lap (%) and the BoP lap budget. LMP2's per-stint energy cap is set by LMU's rulebook, just like GT3.
For the underlying math, see Reference → NRG and car class.
Pit loss (optional)
Expand the + Pit-loss budget fold-out to enter what a pit stop costs. Each stop costs pit lane + the stop time for its type, and StintIQ uses that in two places:
- Total laps. Time in the pits comes off the race clock, so more pit time means fewer laps.
- Stint times. Each driver's start time includes the stops before their stint.
Pit lane is entered once and added to every stop, so the stop times must not include the pit lane, or it gets counted twice:
| Field | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Pit lane | The time a drive-through loses compared with a normal lap: the pit lane at the speed limit instead of the track, without stopping. Easiest to measure as a lap with a drive-through minus a normal lap. | 4:05 − 3:38 = 27 s |
| 4 Tires | Time stationary in the box for a full tire change, from stopping to pulling away. Refuelling and the driver swap happen during it, so they're included. | 40 s |
| 2 Tires | The same, for a two-tire stop. Leave it blank and 2-tire stops use the 4 Tires time. | 28 s |
| No Tires | Time stationary with no tire change: refuelling and the driver swap, whichever takes longer. | 20 s |
| Typical | One number for the whole stop, pit lane included. Older plans have only this. It's used only when Pit lane, 4 Tires and No Tires aren't all filled in. | 67 s |
With those numbers, a 4-tire stop costs 27 + 40 = 67 s.
Pit lane depends on the track and the stop times depend on the car, so time them for yours.
For more on the math, see Reference → Fuel calculator explained.
Save and continue
Click Create plan. You'll land on the plan detail page, ready to assign stints.
See who's free while you build
Once your drivers have filled in the availability grid, the stint builder shows who's free for each stint right on the card — no flipping back and forth. Every driver, backup, and engineer dropdown is tagged with a coloured dot for that stint's time window:
- 🟢 free — marked available for the whole window
- 🟡 maybe — marked maybe
- 🔴 said no — marked unavailable for part of the window
- ⚪ not set — hasn't filled in availability for that window
If the driver you've already assigned marked themselves No for their stint, the row flags it with a ⚠ said no badge so a conflict jumps out at a glance; a driver who's free shows a green ✓ free.
Times on each row are shown in your own local timezone, so the whole plan reads in one clock no matter where your drivers are. Everyone on the team sees the same start times, in their own timezone, on the plan page's Stints card, with a day / dusk / night badge from the in-game clock (hover it for the in-game time).
A race stint's start time is when the car stops for the driver change. The swap happens in the box, so that's when the next driver has to be in the seat. Each start counts the laps before it plus every pit stop before it. A stint's Pit type is the stop at the end of that stint, so it sets when the next driver starts, and the last stint's Pit type isn't used. A stint with more laps than the tank holds also gets its refuel stops. These times are estimates, shown with ≈: where your box sits in the pit lane, and how the race actually runs, move them by a minute or more. Race stints use the availability grid for their time window. Practice and Qualifying stints use each driver's answer for the whole session (drivers answer Yes / Maybe / No per session on the sign-up page), and each session's header shows when it runs.
Seats that won't get reminders
The StintIQ bot DMs people before their stint, but only people it can reach. A placeholder (a driver you added by name) can't get DMs, and neither can a member who hasn't linked their Discord yet. The builder and the plan page mark each of their seats 🔕, and one line above the stints sums it up:
🔕 4 stints won't get Discord reminders: Alex (placeholder), Sam (hasn't linked Discord).
Remind those people yourself, or ask Sam to link Discord (see Stay alert (Discord DMs) in the Driver Guide). The marks go away once the race has ended.
If a driver left the team (or was removed) while they had seats in this race, those seats now sit with a placeholder with their name, and an amber line above the stints says so until you give the seats to someone else:
Alex left the team. Their 4 seats here now sit with a placeholder called Alex, which won't get Discord reminders. Give them to someone else.
See Remove a member.
Suggest a lineup from availability
Hand-matching "who's free at 03:00" to twenty stints is the biggest chore in a long enduro. If your drivers have filled in the availability grid, StintIQ can do the first pass for you.
In the stint builder, click ✨ Suggested Lineup.
A review panel opens with one row per race stint — the driver currently assigned, the driver we'd suggest instead, and a short why. Suggestions favour drivers who marked themselves available for that stint's window, spread seat time evenly, respect each driver's max-consecutive-stints limit, and match night / race-start preferences.
A few things to know:
- Nothing changes until you apply. Tick the rows you want (changed rows start ticked), or hit Accept all suggested, then Apply. Each accepted row goes through the same checks as a manual edit.
- Only drivers who filled in availability are considered. A teammate who hasn't marked anything is listed under Not considered — chase them for their availability, they're never auto-assigned. Placeholders can't fill in availability, so they're always listed there; put them in stints yourself.
- A "maybe" tag means the only fit for that stint marked themselves maybe — confirm with them before counting on it.
- An unfilled stint means no one was available for that window. It's left for you to assign by hand.
- The seat-time balance below the table updates after you apply, so you can see the lineup get fairer.
- Want another pass? After applying, click ↻ Suggest again to re-run against the new lineup. Re-running can rebalance seat time, but it won't clear a flag that's unavoidable — if a driver is the only person available for two back-to-back stints, the "exceeds max consecutive" flag stays until you add availability, relax that driver's limit, or move the stint by hand. The suggestion surfaces the constraint; it can't invent a driver who isn't free.
Suggest a lineup as a starting point, then fine-tune by hand in the builder.
Check the driver workload
Once stints are assigned, scroll to the Driver workload panel on the plan detail page. It turns "who's driving how much" into one glance, with a row per driver:
- Stints — how many race stints they drive.
- Seat time — total time in the car (laps × average lap).
- Night — how many of their stints fall in the in-game night. (Shows a dash until you set an In-game time of day on the plan — that's what tells us when night is.)
- Longest run — the most stints they run back-to-back, shown against their personal max (e.g.
3/2). - Flags — a red flag when someone exceeds their max consecutive stints, and a soft flag when a driver is well above or below the team's average seat time. Hover any flag for the reason.
Use it to spot an unbalanced lineup — someone barely in the car, or one driver carrying every night stint — and fix it in the builder before race day. The panel always reflects the variant you're viewing, so you can compare the balance of an alternate plan before making it active.
Next steps
- Invite drivers and engineers — Share an invite link so teammates can sign up for availability + claim stints.
- Connect to Discord — Wire up race-day DMs.
- Run race day — Race-day checklist.
- Alternate plans (variants) — Draft sibling strategies for the same race + switch which one is active.
Have questions? Join our Discord →