10 years of WRC: what a journey!

Here we are. This is the last week of December 2022, and this is our last week as a WRC licensee. How can I summarize 10 years without writing a book?

As far as I remember, I have started to enjoy video games in my young days with V-Rally 2 in 1999, on the first PlayStation, in the gloves of Marcus Gr?nholm. A game made by Eden Games, with a special Alain Jarniou behind it… I was 10 years old and far to imagine a 23-years-older version of me writing these lines now.

Without talking about the millions of copies sold since 2012, I have been lucky to learn and complete some of my biggest professional achievements from my first E3 participation in 2015 to the 2022 eSports WRC World Finals in the Olympic Stadium of Athens as a kick-off of the Acropolis Rally! We’ve created and managed from the first year the eSports WRC Championship, which was the first official FIA eSports Series to run in parallel to the real Championship, a European road-show with more than 80 events managed by the unique David Henry , set-up the FIA Rally Star together with Stéphane Fillastre and Jér?me Roussel at the FIA, the first development program to use a videogame to identify the most promising drivers from grassroots, and most importantly, we’ve developed new standards for rally games years after years, thanks to the passion and involvement of the whole KT Racing team behind Roman Vincent : level design, game design, physics development, artists…

Over the years, I have been lucky as well to meet and work with Legends of the sport like Sébastien Loeb, Sébastien Ogier, Marcus Gr?nholm, Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo. Being invited to the 50th anniversary Gala of the WRC and seat with Motorsport Legends like Ari Vatanen, Walter R?hrl, Michèle Mouton, Carlos Sainz and many others was a childhood dream come true.

"You never have a second chance to do a first good impression."

I want also to thank some people who got a special role in this 10-years adventure with WRC Promoter starting by Marc de Jong for all the trust, discussions, meetings, advices I’ve learned from the very first days, including the choice of the right jacket for events and reminder that “you never have a second chance to do a first good impression”. Of course, the marketing team with Tobias Schw?rzler for the daily exchanges and Thomas Tap . The Communication team with Jared Grellet and Florian Ruth for the job done to support eSports WRC without forgetting Wilf, the biggest gentleman I have met, Philip Brosamer in the past and finally Jona Siebel together with Oliver Ciesla who initially made all this possible.

Internally, I’m grateful for the trust and freedom I received from the Top Management ( alain FALC , Laurent Honoret , Benoit Clerc and David Talmat ) to develop the marketing strategies over the years and make me grow from an Intern to the Senior Brand Manager I am today, but also the colleagues who worked hard with me during these past few years: Benjamin Vogt , Jules Roger , William Tabary , Camille Ledez , Laurent Pedroni and many others.

Finally, I’m glad to say that this WRC adventure made me meet with some of my closest friends today: Sebastien Pellicano who was the Game Director back in the days at Milestone and who moved in 2016 to work with us, David Henry who drove with sim-rigs all over Europe in the last 10 years with only one objective: people must leave the seats happier than when they arrived, Roman Vincent who decided to refocus the studio on his passion for cars to make it today one of the best Racing games development studio in the world. And of course, to close the loop, Alain Jarniou who made me dream younger with V-Rally and Test Drive Unlimited, and with whom we raised the standards of rally games.

Final thanks to all the eSports WRC community who helped us to create unforgettable memories and great champions and passionate people like Lohan "Nexl" BLANC , Sami Joe Abi Nakhle or my lovely friend Ioannis Kalogerias (aka Greekman) . This would have not been possible without the support from many partners over the years: Hyundai Motorsport ( Thomas Villette ? ), Toyota Motor Europe & Toyota Gazoo Racing ( Danny F. C. ), Fanatec ( Robert Rossi & Belma Nadarevic ), Thrustmaster ( éric Mindjimba ), Playseat (Tako Dijkman), FlexIT ( Micor No?l de Grood ), BenQ, AOC, IIYAMA ( Frédéric Serafin ) but also our team of presenters & commentators who raised the excitement of every events: Becs Williams , René Buttler and Ben Constanduros .

Of course, the end of a chapter does not mean the end of the story and I can’t wait to move forward on the next projects revving up just behind the corner!