EA Sports Le Maestros DLC Review: New Cars, New Stages & A Missing Seb

The latest batch of content for EA Sports WRC is here: The Le Maestros DLC celebrates the careers of Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier. We got to try it early - here's what you can expect.

The 2025 World Rally Championship season has kicked off, and accordingly, EA Sports WRC is rolling out a new content update - the second part of the Season Expansion is out on January 28, and we spent the last week with the Le Maestros DLC. Six new cars, new stages for Monte Carlo and Portugal and lots of new liveries and moments - let's see for whom it's worth firing up WRC again!

First of all, let's address the elephant in the room. To our French friends: Shouldn't it be LES Maestros in plural? Grammar nitpicking aside, this DLC is clearly dedicated to the careers of two French rally stars, Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier. Fittingly, Ogier won the Monte Carlo Rally for the tenth time just prior to the release of this DLC, and the coverage of this event was truly awesome, Chapeau to the WRC, the FPV drone live footage - at times even flying through a tunnel - was mega!


If you do not already own the 2024 Season Expansion or are buying the game new, you can also buy the DLC separately for €9.99 / $9.99 / £8.99, if last year's announcement is still valid. Le Maestros will be released on 28 January 2025.

EA Sports WRC Le Maestros DLC Cars​

• WRC 2017-2021: Citroen C3 WRC
• WRC 2012-2016: Citroen DS3 WRC ’12
• WRC 2012-2016: 2013 Volkswagen Polo R WRC
• F2 Kit Car: Citroën Xsara Kit Car
• S1600: Peugeot 206 S1600
• Rally4: Citroën C2 R2 Max

WRC 2012-2016: 2013 Volkswagen Polo R WRC​

Let's start with the cars: I was particularly looking forward to the 2013 Polo WRC - Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala dominated the car's debut season, securing the drivers' title for the French and the manufacturers' title at the same time, ending a nine-year Citroen streak. Even after that, nobody could stop this car before VW pulled the plug on the 2017 rally programme.

In 2015, I was there when Ogier won the Rallye Deutschland. The car also featured on the cover of the first DiRT Rally in 2015. The one in the game is fun, it handles well around corners and has a good grunt. I am not sure how realistic the dashboard with the speedometer is, though, as it looks rather generic and does not really match what was in the real car.

WRC 2012-2016: 2012 Citroen DS3 WRC​

Incidentally, the Polo opens a new car class in the game for 2012-2016 WRC cars. The car in which Loeb celebrated his last successes before VW entered the scene is also new - the 2012 Citroen DS3 WRC drives and sounds similarly aggressive!

The only thing that surprises me is that Loeb's licence seems to be missing, as his name does not appear on the cars or in the announcements for the DLC. That is a shame. If they had managed to make a DLC with a small story mode about Ogier and Loeb, accompanied by short documentaries, it would have been fantastic.

At least you have the cars, but with the liveries, you get the feeling that something is missing. Latvala, Mikko Hirvonen, Andreas Mikkelsen, Chris Meeke or additional years would have been cool, too.

Meanwhile, EA Sports and Codemasters have revisited the Mini and put it in the class with slight modifications and a 2012 livery, but it also remains in the 1997-2011 class it appeared in since the game originally released at the same time.

Rally4: Citroen C2 R2 Max​

This leaves us with four other cars, two of which fall into the 'youngster' category. Ogier unveiled the Citroen C2 R2 Max in 2008 and drove it in events before making the leap into the WRC cockpit in 2009. The C2 drives like a light, front-wheel-drive car with a short wheelbase should.

S1600: Peugeot 206 S1600​

So does the new Peugeot 206 S1600 - a similar concept, but one that appeared a few years earlier. However, the Peugeot is a bit more willing to turn, a bit wilder, a bit more fun - but in general, EA WRC has more fun cars to offer than these.


The Xsara Kit Car is all the right kinds of aggressive to be excellent fun.

F2 Kit Car: Citroen Xsara Kit Car​

The fifth car in the pack is my personal favourite - the Citroen Xsara Kit Car arrived on the world's rally stages in the late 1990s via the F2 regulations, and this class is really serious: the thing weighs just 960kg, revs over 9000rpm and produces 280bhp. It is no surprise that this concept has at times rivaled the AWD WRC cars, especially on tarmac.

At the 1999 Tour de Corse, two Xsara Kit Cars topped the podium ahead of the assembled competition from Toyota, Subaru or Ford. This fascination with driving stability and low weight is very well represented in the game. If you drive cleanly, you can easily beat the WRC times of the 300 hp era, just like the cars occasionally did back in their day.

2017-2021 WRC: Citroen C3 WRC​

This is the sixth car to be entered in the 2017-2021 WRC class, in addition to the Polo (which has never officially competed in that time) and the M-Sport Ford Fiesta (Ogier's world champion car) is the Citroen C3 . It has also gained a lot of aerodynamic elements and builds up a lot of cornering speed, making it a bit sluggish in weight transfer and turning as it does not really want to change direction. You have to force it to turn a bit more than other cars. It is certainly a cool addition to the fleet!

EA Sports WRC Le Maestros New Stages​

• Monte Carlo: Briançonnet-Entrevaux (14.3km)
• Monte Carlo: Entrevaux-Briançonnet (13.7km)
• Monte Carlo: Les Vénières (6.9km)
• Monte Carlo: Parbiou (6.2km)
• Monte Carlo: Le Champ (7.4km)
• Monte Carlo: Pertus (7.4km)
• Portugal: Fafe (11.3km)
• Portugal: Vila Pouca (11km)
• Portugal: Barbosa (5.7km)
• Portugal: Passos (5.5km)
• Portugal: Moreira do Rei (5.5km)
• Portugal: Ruivães (5.5km)

As part of the DLC, said fleet gets a few more playgrounds to stretch its legs at, too. Officially, 12 new stages have been announced, but by now we know the Codemasters way of counting them. Basically, there is a 14.3km stage for Monte Carlo and the 11.3km Fafe stage for Rally Portugal. These are then offered in reverse and divided into two sections each, so we end up with 6 per country.

The most disappointing thing about this DLC is that none of the content is included in the career mode. A disclaimer reads: "Le Maestros cars and stages will only be available in Time Trial, Moments, Quick Play and Clubs at launch." The fact that the stages don't even appear in Championship mode is the biggest setback for me, as that's actually my favourite mode to play.



Note that there still is no way to simply run a rally like you would a race weekend in the F1 game series, for example. If you want to tackle a full event, you will have to painstakingly set it up stage by stage, including weather and service areas. While it is nice to have this, the inability to simply select the event you want (and at which length - think short, medium, full) is still a glaring omission.

I hope that the new stages will be included in both Career and Championship Mode eventually, because the stages are really good - although for me, they not quite at the level of the Rally Poland. That is more due to the character of the rallies, not their implementation, because in both cases, we have 1:1 recreations of the real stages.

Monte Carlo​

Briançonnet-Entrevaux on the Monte is a typical stage for this rally: Some fast, open sections that require some commitment alternate with narrow rock faces. You have to adapt your rhythm to the change in pace and not get overconfident. A few stones on the side of the road will put the car out of shape more than you would like. If you are driving in winter, the surface changes with ice. It is still a shame that EA WRC does not allow cross mounting or mixing tyre compounds like in the real rally. This would have added a cool strategic element.

Portugal​

Fafe in Portugal is an absolute fan favourite, famous for its massive jump and the crowds it attracts. And yes, the jump is really something - you should check it out in VR! The first part of the stage is not really my cup of tea, I generally do not like those 'tunnels' or hard edges to the left and right, but that is also the case with the real stage. Graphically it looks really nice, as it looks like Codemasters have got the Unreal Engine under control now. However, the crowd and atmosphere could be better for my taste, and there's no leap over WRC Generations, which also realised the stage.


Serious hang time is to be had at Portugal's new Fafe stage.

Liveries​

• Citroën C2 R2 Max: “Launch Livery” (2008)
• Citroën C2 S1600: Sébastien Ogier (2008)
• Citroën C3 WRC: “Citroën” (2018)
• Citroën C3 WRC: “Citroën” (2018)
• Citroën C3 WRC: Sébastien Ogier (2019)
• Citroën C4 WRC: “Citroën” (2010)
• Citroën C4 WRC: Sébastien Ogier (2010)
• Citroën DS3 WRC ’12: “Citroën” (2012)
• Citroën DS3 WRC ’12: Sébastien Ogier (2011)
• Citroën Xsara Kit Car: “Citroën” (1999)
• Citroën Xsara WRC: “Citroën” (2005)
• Citroën Xsara WRC: “Kronos Racing” (2006)
• Ford Fiesta WRC: Sébastien Ogier (2018)
• Peugeot 206 Rally: Gilles Panizzi (2003)
• Peugeot 206 S1600: “Total Livery” (2002)
• ŠKODA Fabia WRC: “Factory Livery” (2003)
• Volkswagen Polo R WRC 2013: Sébastien Ogier (2013)

In addition to the cars and stages, Codemasters is giving us 17 liveries. My insider tip is the Ford Fiesta WRC 2018 with the Ogier livery. When the DLC goes live, there will also be 16 new scenarios in Moments, which I have not been able to test yet.

EA Sports WRC Le Maestros DLC - Should you buy?​

All things considered, I really like EA's approach to WRC, especially the historical content - just imagine that for F1! And the expansions to the existing rallies are something I have been wanting for for a long time.

That said, there are still some problems - the AI's consistency has not really convinced me on my runs. Normally, AI level 90 works quite well for me and I can win stages by a small margin if I get through cleanly. However, this was not the case on some of the stages in Portugal. I simply lost a good second per kilometre.

I give the DLC an 8/10 because the content for the price is really good, especially compared to other racing titles. If you like to drive WRC a lot anyway, it is really a no-brainer. There are deductions for the limited game modes and the lack of liveries/licences, though.



For multiplayer rally action, be sure to stop by the Rally Club portion of our Racing Club! It's free to enter und usually hosts events in interesting scenarios each week, so it will most likely have something built around the new content up its sleeves as soon as it releases.

What are your thoughts on the EA Sports WRC Le Maestros DLC, and will you be getting it? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our WRC forum!