Endurance · Strategy

How to Plan iRacing Endurance Stints: Rules & Tips

You don't win an iRacing endurance on track alone. Who drives when, how much fuel goes in and how much time you lose in the pits are things you decide beforehand. This guide shows how to build a stint plan, which iRacing rules you need to know and how our free iRacing stint planner does the maths for you.

By Redactie Goodfellas · Checked and updated on 26 October 2026

Open the Stint Planner

What is a stint plan?

A stint is the stretch the car runs between two pit stops. In a team race drivers take turns, so a plan answers three questions: how long can one stint last, who drives which stint, and how much time do all the stops cost together? Without a plan you find out mid-race that someone has been in the car too long or that the tank runs dry early.

The iRacing rules that shape your plan

Driver swaps only in your pit stall, with a 30-second timer

According to iRacing's Team Driving support page, a driver change can only happen while the car is stationary in the team's own pit stall. The new driver may not drive away until a 30-second "driver-swap" timer has expired. That timer starts as soon as the car stops and keeps counting while the crew refuels or changes tyres.

So a swap does not automatically cost 30 seconds extra: if your pit service already takes longer, the timer runs alongside it.

Fair share: every driver must complete enough laps

iRacing says the Fair Share rule will "almost always" be enabled in official team sessions; in hosted sessions it is optional. A fair share is a quarter of an equal share of the laps the team completes, rounded up to whole laps.

What happens when a driver falls short depends on how the team entered. In races with declared drivers (the Declare Drivers rule, typically enabled for iRacing series and events), fair share applies to every declared driver. If one of them can't join or drives too little, the team is disqualified. Without declared drivers, iRacing says the team can still be official: only the driver who falls short is not official and receives 0 championship points. The team still needs enough drivers with a fair share to meet the minimum driver count, or it is disqualified.

In timed races the sim recalculates the requirement during the race and shows it in the Entries tab.

Fuel and tyres: one after the other or at the same time

Under iRacing's default (global) pit rules, fuel service is completed before tyre service begins. Some series-specific rulesets, such as IMSA and DTM, do fuel and tyres at the same time. Check which rules your race uses: it determines how much longer a tyre stop takes.

How the Goodfellas Stint Planner works

The free Stint Planner turns the rules above into a plan. You enter race length, drivers, lap time, tank, fuel use and pit times. The planner works in whole laps, checks the fair share and warns you when a stint doesn't fit. Then you export the plan to Excel or copy it to Discord. How the planner works, step by step.

Want to see how a plan holds up in a real race? Read our reports from the 24 Hours of Spa and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Tips for a better stint plan

• Use your race pace, not your fastest lap. Do a long run in practice and note your average lap time and fuel use.
• Mind the fair share. The planner checks the minimum per driver, but it remains an estimate: get everyone in the car early in the race.
• Measure your swap time. Practise a swap in a hosted session and enter the extra time it adds to your stop.
• Use pit macros. iRacing has chat commands such as #fuel to choose an amount of fuel, #autofuel with a margin in laps and #t for four new tyres.
• Drive clean. If a session has an incident limit, iRacing adds up the incidents of all the team's drivers. Read more in iRating and Safety Rating explained.

See how this works out in real races in our race reports, and set up your view for long stints with the FOV calculator.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Consulted on 10 October 2026:

• iRacing Support: Team Driving (driver changes, 30-second timer, Fair Share, declared drivers, incident limit)
• iRacing Support: Team Racing (registration, declared drivers, Fair Share)
• iRacing Support: Series-Specific Sporting Regulations (fuel and tyres sequential or simultaneous)
• iRacing Support: Pit Macros/Chat Commands (#fuel, #autofuel, #t)