Rally in Assetto Corsa: Mods, Co-Driver & Pace Notes Setup

Q: Do I need mods to rally in the original Assetto Corsa?

Yes. You will want Content Manager and Custom Shaders Patch, then rally car and stage mods, and a co-driver app to read pace notes. The dedicated Assetto Corsa Rally game needs none of this.

Assetto Corsa Rally — a rally car on a laser-scanned stage Image: Assetto Corsa Rally © Kunos Simulazioni / 505 Games.

"Can you rally in Assetto Corsa?" is one of the most common questions in sim racing, and the honest answer is: yes — but which Assetto Corsa you mean changes everything. There are two completely different paths, and picking the right one saves you a lot of frustration.

This guide walks through both, plus the piece most people get stuck on: getting a co-driver to actually read you pace notes.

Two ways to rally in Assetto Corsa

Path 1 — Assetto Corsa Rally (the dedicated game). In November 2025, the franchise released Assetto Corsa Rally, a purpose-built rally sim developed by Supernova Games Studios with technical support from Kunos Simulazioni. It ships with laser-scanned stages, rally cars, and — crucially — a professional co-driver reading pace notes built in. Nothing to install; it works out of the box. It''s also sold alongside Assetto Corsa EVO in a bundle, though the two are separate games.

Path 2 — Modding the original Assetto Corsa. The original Assetto Corsa (2014) has no built-in rally mode, but it has one of the deepest modding communities in sim racing. With the right add-ons you can turn it into a capable rally sim — rally cars, real stages, and a co-driver — for free, if you already own the base game.

If you want the cleanest experience with the least setup, Path 1 is the answer. If you love tinkering, already own the original, and want a huge library of community stages, Path 2 is for you. The rest of this guide covers the modded route, since that''s where people get stuck.

Setting up the original Assetto Corsa for rally

Two tools do most of the heavy lifting, and almost every rally mod assumes you have them:

Content Manager — a replacement launcher for Assetto Corsa that makes installing and managing mods far easier. Most mods are designed to be dragged straight into it.
Custom Shaders Patch (CSP) — a graphics and features extension that many modern stage and car mods rely on to work correctly.

Install those first. Then one rally-specific setting catches everyone out: turn ABS off. Many car mods ship with ABS enabled by default, but real rallying doesn''t use it, and it changes how the car behaves under braking on loose surfaces. You can disable it in the car''s assists/preset settings before a stage.

Getting rally cars and stages

With Content Manager and CSP in place, you add rally content the same way you add anything to modded Assetto Corsa: download car and stage mods from the established community hubs and install them through Content Manager. There''s a large catalogue of rally cars and real-world stages available, from classic Group B machinery to modern rally cars, and gravel and tarmac stages from around the world.

A word of caution that applies to all mods: stick to the well-known community sources, and be wary of anything asking you to disable your antivirus or install odd extras. The reputable hubs are well-trafficked and moderated for a reason.

The missing piece: a co-driver and pace notes

Here''s where modded Assetto Corsa differs most from the dedicated Assetto Corsa Rally. Out of the box, a modded stage in the original game gives you the road — but no voice telling you what''s coming. Driving a blind rally stage with no co-driver is genuinely hard, and not much fun.

The fix is a co-driver app. Community-made co-driver mods add pace notes to modded stages — you drive a stage carefully once to generate the notes, and from then on the app reads them back to you as you drive, the same way a real co-driver would. In Assetto Corsa Rally, the built-in co-driver can also be extended by community tools like PacenotePal, which lets you swap in custom voices and edit the notes.

However you get there, once you have a voice reading the road ahead, the game transforms. If the pace-note calls themselves — the numbers, the "into" links, the hazard warnings — are new to you, our Assetto Corsa Rally pace notes guide breaks down exactly what each one means. It''s the same language used in EA WRC and DiRT Rally, so learning it once pays off across every rally game.

Taking pace notes off the screen and onto the road

The reason sim rally is so satisfying is the same reason it''s addictive in real life: driving a road you can''t fully see, guided by a voice that tells you what''s coming, is a genuine skill. Once you''ve built it in Assetto Corsa, it doesn''t stay in the game.

That''s the idea behind Rods. It generates real-time pace notes for any public road and calls the corners to you through your car''s speakers — the same 1–6 severity scale you use in the sim (or a simpler easy/medium/hard mode), the same "into" chaining when corners run together, with call timing you can tune to your comfort. It also flags real hazards along the way — speed bumps, speed cameras, and surface changes — and works offline once you''ve set up a route. No stage to download and no notes to record by hand; it reads the road as you drive it, for cars and motorcycles alike.

So the co-driver instinct you build across a hundred sim stages has somewhere to go the next time you''re on a real mountain pass you''ve never driven.

FAQ

Does Assetto Corsa have rally? The original Assetto Corsa (2014) has no built-in rally mode, but you can add rally cars, stages and a co-driver with community mods. There''s also Assetto Corsa Rally, a separate dedicated rally game released in late 2025 with rally built in.

Do I need mods to rally in the original Assetto Corsa? Yes. You''ll want Content Manager and Custom Shaders Patch, then rally car and stage mods, and a co-driver app to read pace notes. The dedicated Assetto Corsa Rally game needs none of this.

How do I add a co-driver or pace notes to modded Assetto Corsa? Use a community co-driver app. You typically drive a stage once to generate the notes, and the app then reads them back to you as you drive. Assetto Corsa Rally''s built-in co-driver can also be customised with tools like PacenotePal.

Assetto Corsa Rally or modded original AC — which should I choose for rally? Choose Assetto Corsa Rally for the cleanest, no-setup experience with a built-in co-driver. Choose modded original AC if you already own it, enjoy tinkering, and want a huge free library of community stages.