Quote Originally Posted by seb_sh View Post
Exposure / money spent. I guess you can compare the viewership and online impressions you get for WRC with other sports and decide where you want to spend your money.
Why restrict it to sport if you're selling cars? If it was 1% the cost would you advertise on Putin's forehead for global exposure? No.

Quote Originally Posted by seb_sh View Post
In Dakar there's Audi and Mini, besides non-europeans Toyota and Ford, plus Dacia recently announced they are joining and hired Loeb and Al-Attiyah.
Audi are at least electric. Mini and Dacia are in through a team. I don't think imagery of unrecognisable spaceships in a desert landscape matters to them as much as cars that look a little like things we can actually buy on roads we can drive on, as Europeans. But more importantly, there's no big brand promotion, same as Skoda and Citroen in WRC2. They're mainly there only for the function of selling the cars that go rallying, not consumer road cars.