6-minute read

Rally pace notes app: every corner called before you see it

A pace notes app does a rally co-driver’s job. It reads the road ahead and tells you what the next corner does, early enough to act on it. Here is what to look for, how Turini does it, and the other pace note and co-driver apps you can try.

What does a pace notes app do?

It turns the road into short spoken calls. Each corner gets a direction and a grade for how sharp it is, plus anything that changes how you take it: it tightens, it opens, it goes over a crest. The calls come before the corner, so you hear what’s round the bend before you can see it.

There are two ways an app can get the notes. It can work them out from map data, which covers almost any road with no preparation. Or you write or record them yourself, the way rally crews do on the recce. That’s more work, but it’s yours. If the grades are new to you, start with how to read pace notes.

What to look for in a rally pace notes app

• Grades you understand. The rally 1–6 scale, or plain Easy, Medium and Hard while you learn.
• Calls timed in seconds, not metres. At 50 km/h, 100 metres takes about seven seconds; at 120 it takes three. A good app calls earlier the faster you go.
• Linked corners. Corners close together should come as one call with “into”, not two calls on top of each other.
• More than corners. Crests, hairpins, narrow bridges, gravel and level crossings change how you drive a road.
• No signal needed. The best roads go through dead zones. The notes should be on the phone before you leave, and keep coming with the screen off.
• Your car screen. Android Auto or CarPlay, depending on your phone, so the calls come through the speakers with the next corner on the dash.

How Turini writes and calls pace notes

Turini reads the road from OpenStreetMap and elevation data. The shape of the road gives each corner its direction and a grade from 1 to 6, with hairpins and square corners named. It works out whether a corner tightens, opens or runs long, finds crests and dips from the elevation, and adds what the map knows: bridges, tunnels, narrows, gravel, cobbles, roundabouts, level crossings, and speed cameras where that’s legal.

On the drive it calls each note about 4.5 seconds before you reach it, worked out from your speed and how you take the corners, and earlier for hairpins and hard braking. You can move the calls earlier or later. Corners close together are joined with “into”.

You can plan by tapping the map, sharing a Google Maps or Waze link, or importing a GPX or KML file. The notes are saved on the phone, so a drive needs no signal and the screen can be off. With no route at all, Free Roam calls the road you’re on. It works through the car speakers or on the car screen with Android Auto.

Other pace notes and co-driver apps

As of November 2026, from each app’s own site or store listing:

• Rods (iPhone and Android, works with CarPlay) calls every corner from the map, Simple or 1–6, with early, standard or late timing, and warns about speed bumps, cameras and surface changes. It’s the closest app to Turini and already on both stores: see Rods and Turini compared.
• CoDrive (iPhone and Android) was made with rally champion Paolo Andreucci. It tells you each curve’s category as you approach and scores your driving afterwards. Free with paid PRO options, in five languages.
• Tornante (iPhone, with CarPlay) generates notes from a road’s shape and elevation and lets you edit them. Free.
• RallyTrax (Android) works the other way round: you record a drive first, it grades the corners 1–6, and calls them when you drive it again. Free, installed from its GitHub page rather than Google Play.
• Rally Call (iPad and iPhone, $22.99) is for competitors writing their own notes: geotagged voice notes per section and roadbooks for the stage.

For finding roads rather than calling them, see the best driving apps for twisty roads.

What a pace notes app can’t tell you

An app that reads the map knows the road’s shape, not its surface. It can’t see wet leaves, ice, gravel washed across a bend, a tractor or a closed lane. A road rebuilt last year may still have its old shape in the map. A crew that drove the recce knows things no map does.

Turini’s own limits today: it’s Android only, and it’s in early access, not yet on Google Play. iPhone and CarPlay come later.

Always drive within the law, the conditions and what you can see. Turini tells you what the map says; the road is what counts.

Pace notes app: common questions

Read next: how rally crews make and call pace notes, and the best driving roads in the world, with every corner called.

Rods, CoDrive, Tornante, RallyTrax, Rally Call, Google Maps, Waze, Android Auto and CarPlay are trademarks of their owners. Turini isn’t affiliated with any of them.