525k players...
I thing GT academy had quite a few more Players than that...
That depends on how you/Sony calculate it. Since qualifying for the live events entailed weeks of competing, I'm sure that cumulatively, there were more entries into races. How many of those were the same players racing each week is another issue...
Which, surely, is the same thing with this. I would not be surprised if a good amount of the people that took part in, say, the iRacing qualifier also tried their hand at rFactor 2. Whether or not that counts as two different entries is up to you — or, more accurately, the marketing team.
It's the inherent advantage of McLaren running a multi-title approach, though. Especially, as the article touches on, the mobile market. RR3 has an enormous install base to work with, far bigger than any one racing title this generation.
Was that even an eSports event? I thought that was an event to turn virtual racers into real racers.
That'd be GT Academy, which for all intents and purposes, is dead. There's nothing explicit about the FIA Championships turning virtual racers into real ones, though I wouldn't doubt companies are looking at some of the standout drivers for that anyway. Or in the case of Igor, he's already a real race car driver — which no doubt helped his performance, both in terms of on-track prowess and his great off-track attitude with competitors and media.