If someone takes school kids to car races when they teach them the Doppler Effect in science class, it would remain permanently etched in their memory. We are quite sure, however, that the whole bunch of youngsters, many of them adolescents, lighting up the track at the 28th JK Tyre FMSCI National Racing Championship, don’t regret trading in their school books for racing gear for a few weekends a year at least.
The 2025 edition of the championship held recently comprised five categories plus a few subcategories and threw up a new bunch of champions this year. The final round was held at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore, which has been upgraded to Formula 3 specs post-Covid. It’s a fast track now. And being on the pitwall with bits of flying rubber and dust and blast of air hitting the face every time a racer screamed past inches away from the barrier is something every race enthusiast would probably want to experience. As for petrolheads, they can trip on the smell of petrol smoke that fills the air from the straight-through exhausts unhindered by catalytic converters and silencers.
Riders lean through the corner at the final Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup race
To be fair, this was no Formula One; the highest level in the open-wheel racing at the event was Formula 4, which is a couple of notches down and a stepping stone for top-level racing aspirants. Think Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandok, Armaan Ebrahim, Aditya Patel, and Arjun Maini — they all cut their teeth in the JK Motorsport races. The cars were whizzing by at a cool 200kmph-plus on the straights and the racers weren’t on picnic drives round the corners even on the race Sunday. The good thing about these races was they remained engrossing most of the time as overtakes happened quite frequently, leaving the question of who will win quite open till the end of the race, unlike in, say, F1, where it often tends to become a high-speed procession.
As for the categories, there was the Levitas Cup, which comprised race-prepped Maruti Suzuki Ignis cars. Then the Novice Cup for first-time racers and the LGB Formula 4, a category which JK Motorsports says is the least expensive way to enter single-seater, open-wheel racing anywhere in the world. And while the cars are pretty small, it is quite amazing the kind of speeds they can run at. And the marquee category, of course, was the Formula 4 India, which involves cars with turbocharged 1.3-litre petrol engines and top speeds in excess of 200kmph. While those were the four-wheeler categories, there was one two-wheeler category as well — the Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup 2025 for works prepared 650cc twin-cylinder motorcycles.
The racing was wheel-to-wheel and, as it is wont to be in such situations, along with the thrills there were a few spills as well. The hardest-fought race was the final LGB Formula 4 race where the championship leader who had emerged over the weekend, Dhruv Goswami of MSport, an 18-year-old class XII student of St Joseph’s in Bangalore, was just four points ahead of the number two, Diljith TS of Dark Don Racing, at the start. Dhruv, who was sitting farther back on the reverse grid than Diljeet at the start, pulled through to second place behind his teammate and, in the end, managed to stave off a spirited challenge and romped home to win the race and the championship. At the kind of speeds the competitors were racing at and the almost non-existent distance between the cars, one couldn’t help but wonder how quick the reaction times of the drivers have to be avoid collisions!
Monith Kumaran Srinivasan of Ahura Racing won the Rookie title in the LGB Formula 4 category.
The Royal Enfield Continental
GT Cup ran a field of professionals and amateurs together, a dozen each. And while the bikes normally sounded like Dr Jekyll, when the throttle was opened up they did a Mr Hyde. The GT Cup races were some of the most engrossing to watch and listen to. First there was the red-and-black livery of the bikes as well as the riders that stood out in the bright sun. Then there was the din of 24 bikes going round the track, throttles open all the way. From the race building in the middle of the track, one got a different interpretation of surround sound as the field got strung out after a couple of laps and there were bikes on all sides. With turns and chicanes all round the track, one could watch from pretty close the riders hanging out this way or that as the bikes flicked through the bends. In the end, Anish D. Shetty of Bangalore, who had actually secured the championship on Saturday itself, didn’t let up and won the Sunday races as well. Bryan Nicholas of Pondicherry bagged the title in the Amateur class of the Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup.
A Royal Enfield crew member does a jig to the beat struck up by the drum ensemble
Balaji Raju secured the Rookie crown in the JK Tyre Levitas Cup, India’s newest single-make racing series that debuted this season. Jai Prashanth Venkat won the Gentlemen category, stamping his authority in a season the Coimbatore driver has clearly dominated.
With four drivers in contention for the crown in the the JK Tyre Novice Cup, India’s entry-level single-seater series, Lokithlingeash Ravi (DTS Racing) from Pollachi took the honours by winning the shootout in the season’s final race.
Round 4 of the FIA-certified Formula 4 Indian Championship, part of the Indian Racing Festival, was run alongside this championship and saw South African Luviwe Sambudla record his first win of the season in the day’s opening race, and Kenya’s Shane Chandaria clinch the second race. It was a pole-to-chequered flag finish by Sambudla in a race that saw Indian driver Ishaan Madesh of Kolkata Royal Tigers nose ahead of Saishiva Sankaran (Speed Demons Delhi) in the final laps to take third place behind teammate Ghazi Motlekar from Mozambique. In the second race, Chandaria won from pole while Motlekar climbed from fourth position to finish second. French driver Sachel Rotge (Kichcha’s Kings Bengaluru), who won on Saturday, finished third after staring from the same position on the grid, while Madesh fended off Sankaran to finish fourth in a close battle to round off the weekend racing.
Interestingly, among the 15 drivers who participated in the eight teams in this round of the Formula 4 Indian National Championship 2025, no less than 11 young drivers were from abroad, from as far afield as South Africa, Australia, Kenya, Mozambique, France and Austria.
It was an adrenaline-rush weekend with a whole bunch of young racers with a steely determination to make their mark and rewrite the schoolbooks, err.., rulebooks. Looking forward to next year.