Re: EA WRC not starting after 1.9 patch
Saw this potential fix posted on Reddit. Tried it and manually running "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe" worked for me. Haven't had a single problem launching the game from Steam since doing that.
Make sure the game is installed on your C: drive
Go to C: Program Files (x86): Steam: steamapps: common: EA SPORTS WRC: WRC: Binaries: Win64
Right click on "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe"
Select "Run as administrator" (not sure if running as admin is even necessary, but better safe than sorry).
The EA Sports WRC pop-up should appear, with the little white loading bar at the bottom. The bar should load, and after this some new files should be dumped in the folder. After that, the EA Sports WRC pop up should disappear.
Right click WRC.exe and "run as administrator".
After that you should be able to exit the game, and from then launch the game normally from Steam using the green "Play" button. I've tried launching the game from Steam three times and every time it now launches without issue.
It seems that the files that manually running the "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe" as detailed above dumps into the folder named above are required for the game to launch properly since Patch 1.09.