Rally Discussion and Bar Talk Thread

[pantealex]

Rally Discussion and Bar talk thread is for this kind of questions...

Good question but wrong chain.

A little of topic but wanted to raise the question. How popular is rally in other countries? In Estonia, when Tänak is fighting for a win, the whole news media stops talking about anything else and that is the most importand thing for the whole country it seems.
I know Finnish media follows rally quite closely as well. But how is it in other countries?

The question comes mainly since I have been working abroad and know a lot of people from all across Europe and I basically know nobody who knows anything about rallying besides Estonians and Fins.

Not a single UK person I have spoken to knows who Evans is for instance. Even not the Welsh! (and we both work in and around sports).
I know rallies get a lot of people on the roads but how popular is Thierry Neuville in Belgium? Does the media cover him closely there. Do regular people even know who Seb Ogier is in France and so on?
Really interested in this, since my experience is that we Estonians and Fins are the only nutjobs following rally this closely.

[USER47]

I was recently in Belgium and a friend from there (girl who isn't interested in rallye at all) knew who Neuville was, and I saw his face on some drinks and such, so he probably is quite well known there.

[Berke]

Loeb is quite well known in France but I don't know if that's the case with Ogier as well. Here in Turkey, people know no one from motor sports but Schumacher.

[krissucool]

Loeb is quite well known in France but I don't know if that's the case with Ogier as well. Here in Turkey, people know no one from motor sports but Schumacher.

This makes it double spectacular how 2 of the greatest drivers of the 21st century come from France where the sport is not even popular.

Another thing what amazes me is how much money big manufacturers pour into the sport while it is not the most popular of motorsports out there. Where in almost no countries the biggest stars of the sport are household names for the regular public. Not since Colin McRae.

[denkimi]

This makes it double spectacular how 2 of the greatest drivers of the 21st century come from France where the sport is not even popular.

Another thing what amazes me is how much money big manufacturers pour into the sport while it is not the most popular of motorsports out there. Where in almost no countries the biggest stars of the sport are household names for the regular public. Not since Colin McRae.

There are not many fia world championships, so they have not much choise. And besides f1 all the others are even more unknown to the general public.

And they really don't put in that much money compared to their other budgets. Toyota and ford spends both more than 4 billion dollar on advertising annually, Volkswagen even spends 6,5 billion. For a few tens of millions they can try to be wrc world champion, to do that in f1 they need to spend much much more.

[krissucool]

There are not many fia world championships, so they have not much choise. And besides f1 all the others are even more unknown to the general public.

And they really don't put in that much money compared to their other budgets. Toyota and ford spends both more than 4 billion dollar on advertising annually, Volkswagen even spends 6,5 billion. For a few tens of millions they can try to be wrc world champion, to do that in f1 they need to spend much much more.

Fair point. Moto Gp should still be a fair bit more popular but otherwise good points.

[EstWRC]

this Tänak thing has actually got out of hands in estonia at times and so big IMO...its just ridiculous sometimes, they make an article basically about everything

"EXCLUSIVE, Ott ate an sandwich"

[skarderud]

I Norway everyone know who Petter and Henning Solberg is, most people also know about Oliver Solberg
Maybe 30% know Mads Østberg and Andreas Mikkelsen?
I think most people don't know who foreign drivers is, exept colin mcrae of course


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[Mirek]

Fair point. Moto Gp should still be a fair bit more popular but otherwise good points.

MotoGP is irrelevant for carmakers simply because they don't sell motorbikes but cars.

[Mirek]

I Norway everyone know who Petter and Henning Solberg is, most people also know about Oliver Solberg
Maybe 30% know Mads Østberg and Andreas Mikkelsen?
I think most people don't know who foreign drivers is, exept colin mcrae of course

Recently Veiby became very well known in Czech Republic but instead of his performance it's because of his stupid instagram stunt. It got into all major media and at some it even topped the most read article of the month...