Phil Mills says "caution, left 2 tightens don't cut into right 1 hairpin." You hear "something something left." Three seconds later you're wrapped around a tree in Wales.

Dirt Rally 2.0 has one of the most authentic pace note systems in any rally game, voiced by an actual WRC-winning co-driver. But authentic also means dense, fast, and unforgiving if you don't understand the language. The calls follow real rally conventions, and the game doesn't hold your hand explaining them.

That's what this guide is for. Every Dirt Rally pace note call, decoded — plus the audio settings and practice methods that turn co-driver audio from background noise into your biggest competitive advantage.

If you're new to the pace note system entirely, the complete pace notes guide covers the full history and theory. This article focuses specifically on how Dirt Rally 2.0 implements the system and how to get the most from it.

How Dirt Rally 2.0 Pace Notes Work

Dirt Rally 2.0's pace note system uses the 1-to-6 corner severity scale — the same scale used by real WRC crews, where 1 is the tightest corner and 6 is barely a bend.

Your co-driver reads calls in a steady stream as you approach each section of the stage. Each call follows the standard pace note structure:

[Direction] [Severity] [Modifier(s)], [Distance], [Next call]

"Left 4 long, 100, right 3 tightens don't cut" translates to: a sustained medium left-hander, then 100 meters to a tight right that gets sharper with a hazard on the inside.

The system is identical in principle to every other modern pace note implementation. Learn it here and you understand it everywhere — in EA WRC, in real rally onboard footage, and in apps like Rods that use the same 1-6 scale on public roads.

Phil Mills: The Voice of Dirt Rally

Dirt Rally 2.0 features Phil Mills as the co-driver voice — and that's a much bigger deal than most players realize.

Phil Mills is a real professional co-driver. He co-drove for Petter Solberg when they won the 2003 WRC World Championship. He has decades of experience calling pace notes in actual WRC stages, on actual forest roads, at actual rally speeds. He's not a voice actor reading from a script. He's a co-driver reading pace notes the way he's read them thousands of times before.

This matters because his delivery has the natural rhythm and emphasis of a real co-driver call. When he stresses certain words — hitting "tightens" harder, dropping his voice on "caution" — those inflections carry information. Real co-drivers use vocal emphasis as an additional data channel, and Phil does the same thing in the game.

Compare this to AI-generated or voice-actor co-drivers in other games, and the difference is immediately apparent. Phil's calls feel lived-in. There's a cadence that helps your brain parse complex sequences because the emphasis naturally lands on the most important words.

The 1-6 Scale in Dirt Rally 2.0

Here's the core severity scale as Phil Mills calls it:

Phil also calls hairpin turns explicitly as "hairpin left" or "hairpin right" for the very tightest turns — essentially a 1 or tighter. When you hear "hairpin," bring the car to near-walking speed.

Plus and Minus

Dirt Rally 2.0 uses half-steps:

• "Four plus" — Slightly faster than a 4. A bit more speed is safe.
• "Four minus" — Slightly tighter than a 4. Brake a bit more.

The difference between a 3 and a 3 plus might only be 5-10 km/h, but on gravel at the limit, that margin is the difference between a clean exit and a visit to the scenery.

Dirt Rally Pace Note Modifiers

Phil's modifier calls follow real rally convention. Here's every modifier you'll hear and what it means for your driving.

Corner Shape

"Tightens" — The corner gets sharper as you go through it. Do not commit full speed on entry — you'll need to keep braking or tightening your line through the turn. This is the call that separates attentive drivers from crash highlights. On a road you don't know, a tightening corner is genuinely dangerous because your entry speed is based on the opening radius, not the exit.

"Opens" — The corner gets wider through the turn. You can get on the power earlier than the entry severity suggests. "Left 3 opens" starts like a 3 but exits more like a 4 — an opportunity to gain time.

"Long" — The corner continues at its severity for longer than a standard turn. Hold your cornering speed; don't try to accelerate until Phil gives you the next call.

"Short" — A brief corner, over quickly. Just a flick of the wheel.

Hazard Calls

"Don't cut" — The inside of the corner is dangerous. In Dirt Rally, this usually means a bank, ditch, rock, or stump that will snag or damage your car. Fight the instinct to clip the apex.

"Cut" — The inside is clear and you can clip it. Take advantage — cutting safely saves time.

"Keep in" — Stay tight to the inside because the outside is the dangerous side. Usually a cliff, ravine, or steep drop.

"Caution" — General warning. The upcoming section is tricky — reduce your pace and sharpen your focus.

"Narrows" — The road gets tighter ahead. You may need to adjust your line to avoid clipping the edges.

Road Features

"Crest" — A rise in the road that blocks your view over the top. The car gets light at the top, reducing grip. Corners combined with crests ("left 3 over crest") are significantly harder than flat corners of the same severity because you lose both visibility and grip simultaneously.

"Jump" — More severe than a crest — the car leaves the ground. Keep the wheels straight and avoid braking while airborne.

"Dip" — A depression that compresses then unloads the suspension. Can upset the car's balance mid-corner.

"Water splash" — Crossing standing water. Creates drag that can pull the car off line.

"Bridge" — A narrow crossing. Treat it like "narrows."

Distance Calls

Phil calls distances between corners in meters:

• "Into" — No gap. Corners are linked.
• "And" — Barely a gap. A car length.
• "20" to "40" — Short connection, minimal straightening time.
• "50" to "80" — Enough to settle the car.
• "100" to "200" — A real straight.
• "Long" (200+) — Extended straight, build full speed.

Here's the part many players overlook: "into" changes everything. When Phil says "right 3 into left 2," those aren't two corners — they're one complex. You need to exit the right already setting up for the left. There's no time to straighten, no time to reset. Compare that with "right 3, 150, left 2" where each corner is a separate event with recovery time between them.

Complete Dirt Rally Pace Note Reference

Audio Settings for Better Pace Note Clarity

Dirt Rally 2.0's audio is fantastic for immersion, but all that engine roar, gravel spray, and turbo flutter can drown out your co-driver. Here's how to fix that.

Recommended Audio Mix

1. Co-driver voice: 90-100% — Phil's voice should be the loudest thing in the car
2. Engine: 60-70% — Still present for gear-change feedback, but not dominant
3. Effects (gravel, impacts, wind): 50-70% — These carry useful information (surface changes, contact) but shouldn't overpower calls
4. Music: 0% during stages — Music has zero gameplay value and competes directly with co-driver calls
5. Ambient: 40-60% — Low enough to not interfere

Headphones vs Speakers

Headphones are significantly better for pace note clarity. The spatial separation helps your brain isolate Phil's voice from the soundscape. If you're playing on speakers, consider boosting the co-driver volume even further — 100% is not too loud.

The Subtitles Option

Dirt Rally 2.0 can display pace notes as on-screen text alongside the audio calls. Some players find this helpful as a backup channel — if you missed an audio call, the text is still visible for a moment. Others find the text distracting. Try both and decide what works for your brain.

The goal with audio settings is simple: replicate what a real rally driver hears through their intercom. In a WRC car, the co-driver's voice is piped directly into the driver's helmet and is engineered to cut through every other sound. Make Phil the clearest voice in your mix.

Best Stages for Learning Pace Notes

Not all stages are created equal for learning the system. Some are fast and forgiving; others are technical nightmares that punish every moment of inattention. Start with the right stages and the learning curve flattens dramatically.

Best Starting Stages

New Zealand — The tarmac stages are clean, fast, and relatively wide. Corners are well-sighted with good visibility. The pace note calls are simpler because there are fewer stacked modifiers and the road surface is consistent. This is the best place to train your ear to the number scale without gravel variables.

Australia — Wide gravel roads with generous run-off areas. Forgiving when you overshoot a corner. The stages have a good mix of severity numbers without too many complex modifier stacks. Good for learning the link between numbers and braking points.

Argentina — More technical than Australia but with a good rhythm. The stages flow well, with clear transitions between corners. Phil's calls here demonstrate the full range of distances ("into" through "200") which helps you learn to use the gaps.

Stages to Avoid Early On

Wales — Narrow, muddy, with limited visibility and aggressive camber changes. The corner combinations are brutal for beginners. Save Wales until you can consistently process Phil's calls on easier stages.

Scotland — Similar to Wales but with added wet surfaces. Beautiful, but unforgiving.

Monte Carlo — Mixed surface (ice, wet tarmac, dry tarmac) on the same stage. You need to process pace notes AND manage surface changes simultaneously. Not a beginner stage.

The Practice Method

Here's a structured approach that works:

1. Pick one easy stage. New Zealand is ideal.
2. Drive at 60% pace. You're not trying to set times. You're trying to hear.
3. Focus only on numbers. Hear "left 4" and respond. Ignore modifiers for now.
4. Repeat the same stage 5 times. By the third run, you'll start recognizing sections. By the fifth, you'll anticipate calls before Phil makes them.
5. Add modifiers. Once numbers are automatic, start listening for "tightens," "opens," and "don't cut." These three modifiers cover 90% of critical information.
6. Move to a harder stage. Australia, then Argentina, then the technical stages.

This is exactly how real rally drivers build their listening skills. They don't start at WRC speed on Rally Finland. They start slowly, build the neural pathways, and let speed come as a consequence of understanding.

Dirt Rally 2.0 vs EA WRC Pace Notes

If you play both games, you'll notice differences in how pace notes are presented. Here's a quick comparison.

The biggest practical difference is call timing adjustability. EA WRC lets you configure how far ahead your co-driver reads. Dirt Rally 2.0's timing is fixed per stage — you adapt to it rather than customizing it. For a deep dive into EA WRC's system and settings, see the EA WRC pace notes guide.

Both games faithfully represent the real system. If you learn pace notes in Dirt Rally, you understand them in EA WRC, and vice versa. The language is the same — it's just the voice and delivery that differ.

From Dirt Rally to Real Roads

If you've spent any real time with Dirt Rally 2.0, you already understand pace notes better than 99% of people who drive winding roads. You know what a "3 tightens" feels like. You know why "don't cut" matters. You know the sickening moment when you realize you've entered a corner one number too hot.

That knowledge applies directly to real driving. The 1-6 scale, the modifiers, the distance calls — they're not game abstractions. They're the actual system professional rally crews have used for decades to describe roads.

Rods uses the same 1-6 system to call corners on real public roads. When you hear "left 3 tightens" from Rods on an unfamiliar mountain pass, it means exactly what it meant when Phil called it on a Wales stage in Dirt Rally — the corner is tight and getting tighter, and you need to adjust accordingly. The muscle memory transfers directly.

The difference is that on a real road, there's no reset. The corners are genuinely unknown. And having that co-driver voice telling you what's coming — the same way Phil told you in the game — goes from entertainment to genuinely useful information.

FAQ

Who is the co-driver voice in Dirt Rally 2.0? Phil Mills, a real professional rally co-driver who won the 2003 WRC World Championship alongside driver Petter Solberg. His pace note delivery in the game uses the same natural cadence he developed over decades of real rally co-driving.

What does the 1-6 scale mean in Dirt Rally? 1 is the tightest corner (hairpin, near-stationary turn) and 6 is the fastest (barely a bend, full throttle). The scale is identical to real WRC pace notes and matches other rally games like EA WRC.

Can you adjust co-driver timing in Dirt Rally 2.0? Dirt Rally 2.0 does not have a user-adjustable co-driver call timing setting like EA WRC. The call timing is fixed per stage. You adapt to the timing rather than configuring it — which some players prefer, as it forces you to develop the skill of processing calls at whatever speed they arrive.

What are the best stages for beginners in Dirt Rally 2.0? New Zealand (tarmac, good visibility, simple calls), Australia (wide gravel, forgiving runoff), and Argentina (good rhythm and flow). Avoid Wales, Scotland, and Monte Carlo until you can consistently process pace note calls on easier stages.

Are Dirt Rally pace notes the same as real rally pace notes? Yes, substantially. Dirt Rally 2.0 uses the real 1-6 corner severity scale, standard modifiers (tightens, opens, don't cut, crest, etc.), and metric distance calls — all voiced by a real WRC co-driver. The system is a faithful representation of how rally pace notes actually work.