Nacon and KT Racing (Kylotonn) are celebrating the results of the WRC 9 season so far.

Nacon has become a key player in racing games publishing over the last few years, and they will make additional surprises and announcements in the next few days (and no, announcing WRC 10 isn’t one of them). In the past six months, WRC players have raced over 33 million special stages, which is a total of 221 million kilometres, which would allow you to drive around the world 5500 times. The most-played rallies include Finland (#1), Sweden (#3), and Japan (#5). Japan returns to WRC after 2011, and PC users with racing wheels took up 68%, proving the game’s immersion. On PlayStation 5, the DualSense‘s haptic features were utilised.

Since 2016, eSports has been central to the WRC series. In partnership with Toyota Gazoo Racing, the eSports WRC Championship is currently in its sixth season. Lebanese Sami-Joe05 has won the first five rounds of the season, setting a new record. The go-kart champion was also voted the MVP (Most Valuable Player) in 2020, and he is leading the French world champion (2017, 2019) Nexl. The first four rounds had a tight competition between the two (in Argentina, three consecutive special stages and 12 minutes and 42 seconds of driving, the difference between them were 110 milliseconds), but in the fifth round on New Zealand, Sami-Joe widened the gap with nearly 5 seconds and a 38-point lead over his rival. However, nine races are remaining. Whoever wins will receive a Toyota GR Yaris.

All the players between the ages of 17 and 26 can enter the FIA Rally Star programme to become a real-life rally driver. Over 75,000 special stages have been contested, and the first three drivers to qualify for intercontinental finals have been identified. The racing is tight as expected: Spanish Alejandro “Billy Cherokee” Aroca (who qualified in the first phase) was only 18 milliseconds ahead of France’s Luc Fournier (who qualified in the second phase)! Seven finalists, including one female driver, will be able to start their international driving career before trying to move up to the FIA Junior WRC.

WRC 9 has 14 environments, over 110 special stages, 3 new rallies (Japan, New Zealand, Kenya), and the new special stages in the Finland and Portugal rallies released as post-launch patches on consoles. It includes over 50 official teams and their livery from the WRC, WRC 2, WRC 3 and Junior WRC, as well as over 15 legendary cars that have shaped the history of the WRC. In an all-new Clubs mode, you can create custom championships.

Source: Magnew press release