Quote Originally Posted by makinen_fan View Post
Going to China may be a bit tricky though in terms of following the event live as we do now!
Remember that the majority of live coverage at the moment, apart from WRC+, goes through Twitter, facebook, YouTube. All of these are banned in China (they have their own version of these)!! How will the teams communicate the results in real time? Just wait until Monday? Or use illegal VPN to bypass the banned websites?
It will be like an event back in the early 2000 with just live radio (that also rely heavily on twitter for info source now) and live results pages (if and when they work...) You know what it means to rely on wrc.com and TV coverage for information of what happened in the rally... we will miss 99% of what was going on.

Another thing that comes to mind. An onboard video with Kopecky, 2 years ago, from the Chinese APRC round. During a 14min stage I counted less than 20 spectators...
You are right in most cases like race live message.

But It will not a problem if no one come to the stage watching the race. VW/Hyundai/Citroen will give them all on PR of marketing side, like TV advertisement, Chinese SNS.

In China most people do not care about live sport(include F1/tennis), the most effective way is social network and advertisement.

In another way, APRC and the other Chinese local race was not promote at same level as other races.

It is clear China race may not be a good WRC race round, but definitely it will be a huge promotion event for the manufactures, FIA and car makers love to see it.