WRC main class in 2025

[Morte66]

I never knew MotoGP was anything like that popular.

[fiscorpun]

I ALWAYS found weird that Sportcars racing audience is that small... THO they appear to be the most "hardcore", especially on the internet. It seems to me they are all true fans. Huge races, tons of entries, different classes. Thats NOT for the casual viewer... While Motogo and F1 numbers are huge but probably half of that is from casual and extracasual fans. Nascar is weirdly big too, and they are a national championship. But thats fine. Their "national Championships" are all big (nba, nhl, mlb...).
I'd guess WRC fans are also more hardcore, cuz its not easy for a casual fan to follow 3 days of event, right? Tho I wonder how much in those numbers are just casual people searching for "incredible rally crashes" haha
Sad not to see rallycross on that list

[doubled1978]

It does show that the WRC still matters, but that they have to find a way to make it affordable enough for manufactures to take part. There is no doubt whatsoever that the stage side spectacle is in a different league to anything else and in this sanitised world, people do look for that.

[Morte66]

Tho I wonder how much in those numbers are just casual people searching for "incredible rally crashes" haha

My old flatmate did that. He pretty much fell asleep watching a power stage.

[seb_sh]

I never knew MotoGP was anything like that popular.

MotoGP is quite big, and used to be bigger, they're actually in a bit of a crysis lately due to Rossi retiring, Marquez being injured and the fact that the grid is very Spain and Italy centered. They are making some efforts like introducing sprint races, they organise talent cups and junior series everywhere to try to have more variety in rider nationalities - apparently having a home hero is a big boost to TV ratings and the price they can charge for TV rights in that particular country.

WEC surprised me a bit, I guess it's a very specific crowd but they are very dedicated. The tickets for this years race were put up for sale last november and sold out in like 10 days - over 300.000 tickets gone in a few days 9 months before the event... sure some will be resold but still...

EDIT: i meant tickets for this year's Le Mans 24H race, for other races there's less enthusiasm

[fiscorpun]

Tbh before Drive to Survive, MotoGP numbers on social media (at least followers) were bigger than F1. I remember reading that, then I went and count the numbers myself just to be sure.... Hehe

[Kenneth]

Because F1 had no social media essentially before Liberty Media bought the series. Bernie was strongly against them and outright banned them.

So it was not like Drive to Survive boosted the numbers, but F1 started to properly use social media around the same time the first season of DtS came out.

[fiscorpun]

I was watching some of the 2011 moments and highlights to see how Kimi Raikkonen did in Rallying, I wasnt watching WRC yet back then. Dude, those cars were already great haha Not sure the specs but they looked reaally great. IDK why we keep thinking Rally1s are a necessity haha Sorry, thinking about this Rally1 vs Rally2 way too much, I know

[Mirek]

I was watching some of the 2011 moments and highlights to see how Kimi Raikkonen did in Rallying, I wasnt watching WRC yet back then. Dude, those cars were already great haha Not sure the specs but they looked reaally great. IDK why we keep thinking Rally1s are a necessity haha Sorry, thinking about this Rally1 vs Rally2 way too much, I know

2011 WRC cars were basically S2000 with 1.6T engine with 33 mm restrictor and larger wings. They had no center diff and relatively small power and torque compared to today's Rally1.

You can consider them to be pretty similar to what the Rally2+ would be.

[doubled1978]

2011 WRC cars were basically S2000 with 1.6T engine with 33 mm restrictor and larger wings. They had no center diff and relatively small power and torque compared to today's Rally1.

You can consider them to be pretty similar to what the Rally2+ would be.

Yes, and I don’t recall ever feeling that they weren’t quick enough or noisy enough when I went to watch them. Just having them rev higher than the previous 2l cars made them sound ok.