FPV Drone Chases WRC Rally Car Through The Desert, And The Footage Is Absolutely Wild
Photo credit: FIA World Rally Championship
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The FIA World Rally Championship YouTube channel dropped a video titled “INSANE Rally Drone Footage,” and for once, the title isn’t clickbait. An FPV drone chases a World Rally Car through a desert stage at full speed, and it keeps up. Not for a few seconds. Not for a single corner. Mile after mile after mile.
The 31,000+ views and 1,600 likes in just two weeks tell you everything. The comments section is full of viewers comparing it to a video game. One commenter with 90 likes asked why this type of footage isn’t on TV already. Good question.
This FPV pilot is doing what DJI’s ActiveTrack promises
DJI has spent years marketing ActiveTrack as a flagship feature on drones like the DJI Avata and the Air series. The idea is simple: the drone locks onto a subject and follows it. But if there ever was a real-world example of what tracking a fast-moving subject actually looks like, it’s a human FPV pilot chasing a 300-horsepower rally car through dust, hills, and terrain changes at speeds that would make any autonomous system tap out.
No algorithm did this. A pilot with goggles on, sticks in hand, matched the pace of a World Rally Car across open desert. That’s the real ActiveTrack.
WRC and DJI have partnered on drone coverage since 2016
The WRC was early to adopt drone technology. DJI has been the official drone partner since 2016, using Inspire and Phantom drones for aerial stage coverage and broadcast integration. But those are gimbal-stabilized camera drones, not FPV rigs. This video shows what happens when you hand the job to an FPV pilot who can match a rally car’s pace across open terrain.
The WRC’s own content director, Florian Ruth, has said drones are now an essential part of live rally coverage, on par with every other camera in their broadcast setup. And FPV footage like this is the reason why.
DroneXL’s Take
I’ve been saying this for years. The best way to watch action sports is from an FPV drone. We wrote about it when Formula One first used FPV drones during the Spanish Grand Prix back in 2022, and again when Johnny FPV chased Red Bull’s F1 car through the Las Vegas desert. This WRC video is more proof that FPV drone footage puts viewers in the middle of the action in a way no helicopter, no onboard camera, and no trackside lens ever will.
Expect every major motorsport series to have dedicated FPV drone coverage in their live broadcasts within the next 12 months. Formula One has been experimenting with it. Formula Drift already relies on it. The WRC has been doing it longer than anyone. The holdouts are running out of excuses.
Editorial Note: This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI to ensure technical accuracy and archive retrieval. All insights, industry analysis, and perspectives were provided exclusively by Haye Kesteloo and our other DroneXL authors, editors, and YouTube partners to ensure the “Human-First” perspective our readers expect.