Chennai, Jan 25 (.) Bengaluru’s 17-year-old schoolboy Ishaan Madesh and Pune teenager Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran won the premier MRF Formula 2000 and Formula 1600 titles respectively as the fourth and final round of the MRF MMSC-FMSCI Indian National Car Racing Championship 2025 concluded at the Madras International Circuit, at Irungattukttai, about 40 km from here
on Sunday.
Ishaan, the reigning National Karting champion, finished the weekend and the season with a triple crown as he overcame a stiff
resistance from Pune’s Arjun Chheda who finished runner-up in the championship standings.
Sai Shiva won one of the three races to emerge National champion, sealing the title with a race to spare.
Biren Pithawalla, the 44-year-old businessman from Mumbai, survived the whole gamut of emotions and frustrations beginning with misbehaving brakes, drop in power and a deep cut in his right forefinger, through the weekend to retain the title in the premier Indian Touring Cars category.
Three podium finishes this weekend fetched the N1 Racing driver enough points to edge out Lonavala’s Dhruv Chavan by 10 points
in the championship stakes.
Even as Pithawalla clinched the title, his main contenders, Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) and Ritesh Rai (Buzzing Hornet) fought their
own battles with the former finally winning a race, the last of the season, but could only manage a P4 in points standing, behind Rai
who otherwise dominated the season with six wins.
Coimbatore’s 80-year-old Vidyaprakash, fighting off a problematic back, did just enough to win the title in the ITC 1625 class, holding off his grand-nephew Nikanth Rambabu in the two-car field.
Bengaluru’s Rithvik Thomas (Race Concepts) had the luxury of sitting out the last race today after sealing the Indian Junior Touring
Cars championship with a fourth-place finish in the previous outing this morning.
Thrissur’s Diljith TS (DTS Racing) dominated the Super Stock category with eight wins in nine starts to win the championship despite having missed the first round.
In the drama-filled Formula LGB 1300 category, Joel Joseph (DTS Racing) from Ernakulam clinched both the Open and Junior crowns with three podium finishes over the weekend.
Both races today dished out plenty of thrills and excitement as Joel survived close battles that included his arch-rival and team-mate Vinith Kumar who eventually settled for third spot in the points standings behind Navi Mumbai’s Aditya Patnaik (Momentum Motorsports).
Coimbatore’s Akshay Muralidharan enjoyed a large slice of luck which helped him win the title in the MRF Saloons category despite
a non-finish in the final race, while young Tarushi Vikram (Chikkamagaluru) ended the season on high, winning two of the three races which saw her finish third in the championship behind Mohammed Arafath (Chennai).
Aman Nagdev, a teenager from Noida, clinched the championship in the Volkswagen Polo Cup by winning the last race of the season
for his sixth in 10 starts.
He had won Saturday’s first of the four races which put him on path to the title and a second win today put him out of reach of the chasing pack in the race for points.
The results (Provisional):
MRF F2000 (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Ishaan Madesh (Bengaluru) (21min, 00.736sec); 2. Arjun Chheda (Pune) (21:14.310); 3. Shivesh Selvarathnam (Bengaluru) (21:19.348).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Ishaan Madesh (12:47.405); 2. Arjun Chheda (12:52.727); 3. Tarun MB (Bengaluru) (13:06.385).
Driver Champion: Ishaan Madesh (Bengaluru).
MRF F1600 (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (Pune) (21:56.732); 2. Nigel Abraham Thomas (Bengaluru) (22:02.561); 3. Arjun S Nair (Bengaluru) (22:04.050).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Nigel Abraham Thomas (13:57.378); 2. Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (14:06.172); 3. Gyan S (Bengaluru) (14:17.826).
Driver Champion: Sai Shiva Makesh Sankaran (Pune).
Indian Touring Cars (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Karna Kadur (Coimbatore, Arka Motorsports) (19mins, 15.138secs); 2. Biren Pithawalla (Mumbai, Team N1 Racing) (19:25.275);
3. Arjun Balu (Coimbatore, Race Concepts Motorsports) (19:25.733).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Arjun Balu (14:55.495); 2. Biren Pithawalla (15:09.053); 3. Rithesh Rai (Chennai, Buzzing Hornet) (15:15.953).
Driver champion: Biren Pithawalla (Mumbai, Team N1 Racing).
Champion Team: Buzzing Hornet Motorsports.
ITC 1625 (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Nikanth Rambalu (Coimbatore, Performance Racing) (20:22.211).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Nikanth Rambalu (16:10.997); 2. Vidyaprakash Damodaran (Coimbatore, Performance Racing) (16:11.924).
Driver Champion: Vidyaprakash Damodaran (Coimbatore, Team Performance Racing).
Team: Team Performance Racing.
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Deepak Ravikumar (Chennai, Performance Racing) (20:03.408); 2. RP Raja Rajan (Chennai, Performance Racing) (20:39.977);
3. Jarshan Anand (Chennai, DB Motorsports) (21:07.201).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Viswas Vijayaraj (Nellore, Performance Racing) (15:31.018); 2. Deepak Ravikumar (15:34.664); 3. RP Raja Rajan (16:10.218).
Driver Champion: Rithvik Thomas (Bengaluru, Race Concepts).
Team: Team Performance Racing.
Super Stock (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Anirudha Arvind (Chennai, DTS Racing) (21:12.952); 2. Diljith TS (Thrissur, DTS Racing) (19:24.991 1 lap); 3. Deepa S John (Thiruvananthapuram, DTS Racing) (19:37.628 1 lap).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Dilijith TS (16:35.981); 2. Krishanu Dutta Bhuyan (Guwahati, Zion Racing) (16:51.049); 3. Anirudha Arvind (16:55.613).
Driver Champion: Diljith TS (Thrissur, DTS Racing).
Team: DTS Racing.
Formula LGB 1300 (Race-2, 10 laps) (Open and Junior):
1. Bhuvan Bonu (Visakhapatnam, MSPORT) (21:44.649); 2. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai, Momentum Motorsports) (21:53.533);
3. Joel Joseph (Ernakulam, DTS Racing) (21:54.505).
Race-3 (8 laps) (Open and Junior):
1. Vinith Kumar (Tirupur, DTS Racing) (15:09.078); 2. Lokithlingeash Ravi (Pollachi, DTS Racing) (15:09.805); 3. Joel Joseph (Ernakulam, DTS Racing) (15:10.039).
Driver Champion (Open and Junior): Joel Joseph (Open and Junior).
Team (Open and Junior): DTS Racing.
MRF Saloons (Race-2, 9 laps):
1. Akshay Muralidharan (Coimbatore) (27:04.714); 2. Tarushi Vikram (Chikkamagalur) (27:30.993); 3. Dr MM Annamallia (Chennai) (27:33.844).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Tarushi Vikram (Chikmagaluru) (17:56.618); 2. Mohammed Arafath (Chennai) (16:01.703 1 lap); 3. Salvius Karthik Roy (Chennai) (16:11.300 1 lap).
Driver Champion: Akshay Muralidharan (Coimbatore).
Volkswagen Polo Cup (Race-2, 10 laps):
1. Ojas Surve (Navi Mumbai) (26:21.764); 2. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai) (26:56.419); 3. Aman Nagdev (Noida) (27:04.902).
Race-3 (8 laps):
1. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai) (15:43.686); 2. Aman Nagdev (Noida) (15:48.564); 3. Pratikk Sonawane (Mumbai) (15:50.882).
Race-4 (8 laps):
1. Aman Nagdev (Noida) (15:30.275); 2. Ojas Surve (Navi Mumbai) (15:31.585); 3. Aditya Patnaik (Navi Mumbai) (1538:083).
Driver Champion: Aman Nagdev (Noida).
. GV 1850