Chennai, Jan 5 (.) Three 17-year-olds, Pune’s Arjun Chheda and Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran, and Ishaan Madesh from Bengaluru were in the spotlight with victories in the MRF single-seater categories as the third and penultimate round of the MRF MMSC-FMSCI Indian National Car Racing Championship 2025 concluded at the Madras International Circuit, at Irungattukottai, about 40 km from
here, on Monday.
Arjun Chheda and Ishaan Madesh, the reigning National karting champion, won a race apiece today in the MRF Formula 2000 category, while Sai Shiva Sankaran dominated the MRF Fomula 1600 class, winning all three races this round for a total of five victories in races this season, which will conclude at the same venue later this month.
The results saw Arjun Chheda, with five wins to his credit, keeping his top spot in the provisional championship standings, just five points ahead of Ishaan Madesh while Sai Shiva Sankaran enjoys a 24-point advantage over Bengaluru’s Arjun Nair.
The big story of the weekend was scripted by the mechanics of Arka Motorsports who all worked late into the night to ready their cars for today’s two races in the Indian Touring Cars class.
The result of their efforts saw Chennai’s Ritesh Rai (Buzzing Hornet), whose car was tuned by Arka Motorsports, clinch a double today. Multiple National Rally champion Karna Kadur (Arka Motorsports) who too had missed yesterday’s Race-1, notched one podium finish to mark his one-off return.
The 8-time National rally champion returned to racing after a gap of 20 years.
Amidst all the chaos in the garages, former National champion and points leader going into the round, Coimbatore’s Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) suffered three retirements due to various issues with his car.
At the end of the round, Lonavla’s Dhruv Chavan, a private entry, remained the only competitor in the ITC class to finish all the nine races so far and thus leads the championship, albeit just three ahead of Pithawalla with Ritesh Rai moving to P3 ahead of Arjun Balu in the provisional standings.
Thrissur’s Dilijith TS (DTS Racing) notched his sixth win in a row in the Super Stock class to keep himself in title contention while Sri Lankan Kesara Godage (Performance Racng) with three P2 finishes, continues to lead the points table in this category. Nellore’s Viswas Vijayaraj (Performance Racing) enjoyed a successful Monday with a double in the Indian Junior Touring Cars category.
Ernakulam’s Joel Joseph (DTS Racing) completed a successful round winning both the races today, the first of which was marred by multiple stoppages due to on-track incidents, as he moved to the top of the points table in both Open and Junior classes of the Formula LGB 1300 category.
In the MRF Saloons (Toyota Etios) category, Coimbatore’s Akshay Muralidharan and local challenger Mohamed Arfath won a race apiece. Muralidharan leads the championship in this category.
The results (Provisional):
MRF F2000 (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Ishaan Madesh (Bengaluru) (15mins, 58.080secs); 2. Arjun Chheda (Pune) (16:09.792); 3. Tarun MB (Bengaluru) (16:21.957). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Arjun Chheda (12:50.994); 2. Ishaan Madesh (12:51.970); 3. Shivesh Selvarathnam (Bengaluru) (13:03.884).
MRF F1600 (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (Pune) (17:26.932); 2. Nigel Abraham Thomas (Bengaluru) (17:29.862); 3. Arjun S Nair (Bengaluru) (17:34.344). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (13:51.994); 2. Arjun S Nair (13:52.734); 3. Nigel Abraham Thomas (13:59.360).
Indian Touring Cars (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Ritesh Rai (Chennai, Buzzing Hornet Motorsports) (18:51.494); 2. Biren Pithawala (Mumbai, Team N1) (18:59.574); 3. Karna Kadur (Coimbatore, Arka Motosports) (18:59.800). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Ritesh Rai (Chennai, Buzzing Hornet) (14:58.815); 2. Dhruv Chavan (Lonavla, Pvt) (15:22.189); 3. Biren Pithawalla (Mumbai, N1 Racing) (17:10.467).
ITC 1625 (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Vidyaprakash Damodaran (Thrissur, Team Performance Racing) (19:46.309); 2. Nikanth Rambalu (Coimbatore, Team Performance Racing) (19:46.466). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Nikanth Rambalu (16:35.344). (Only one finisher).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Viswas Vijayaraj (Nellore, Team Performance Racing) (19:23.558); 2. Rithvik Thomas (Bengaluru, Race Concepts Motorsports) (19:47,878); 3. Jarshan Anand (Chennai, pvt) (20:11.101). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Viswas Vijayaraj (15:34.116); 2. Jarshan Anand (16:16.844).
Super Stock (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Diljith TS (Thrissur, DTS Racing) (20:45.227); 2. Kesara Godage (Colombo, Redline Racing India) (18:45.845 1 lap); 3. Lal Kattikulam Bharathan (Thrissur, DTS Racing) (18:58.193 1 lap). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Diljith TS (16:34.197); 2. Kesara Godage (16:40.033); 3. Krishanu Dutta Bhuyan (Guwahati, Zion Racing) (16:52.865).
Formula LGB 1300 (Race-2, 10 laps) (Open and Junior):
1. Joel Joseph (Ernakulam, DTS Racing) (22:48.689); 2. Lokithlingeash Ravi (Pollachi, DTS Racing) (22:48.778); 3. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai, Momentum Motorsports) (22:57.522). Race-3 (8 laps, Open and Junior): 1. Joel Joseph (15:05.346); 2. Vinith Kumar (Tirupur, DTS Racing) (15:08.935); 3. Bhuvan Bonu (Visakhapatnam, MSPORT) (15:20.145).
MRF Saloons (Toyota Etios) Race-2 (10 laps):
1. Akshay Muralidharan (Coimbaroe) (21:27.550); 2. Mohammed Arfath (Chennai) (21:32.038); 3. Yash Pawar (Mumbai) (22:35.920). Race-3 (8 laps): 1. Mohammed Arafath (17:14.385): 2. Tarushi Vikram (Bengaluru) (17:14.800); 3. Akshay Muralidharan (Coimbatore) (17:15.536).
. GV 1810