How the Indian Racing League works: city franchises, a driver draft and titles shared by two drivers

The short answer

The Indian Racing League is a closed franchise league, not an open entry championship. Six teams carry Indian city names, each runs two cars and four drivers, and you do not buy your way into a seat the way you can in a club race. Drivers go into a pool and franchises pick them in a draft. The main title is then shared, because the championship is scored for a team's driver pairing rather than one individual.

Promoter Racing Promotions Pvt Ltd (RPPL) calls it "India's franchise-based, gender-neutral racing league" and slots every driver into one of four categories: Indian, International, Female and Reserve. The teams for the current season are Goa Aces JA Racing, Speed Demons Delhi, Kichcha's Kings Bengaluru, Hyderabad Blackbirds, Kolkata Royal Tigers and Chennai Turbo Riders.

The draft, and why it exists

The first official IRL driver draft was held on 15 July 2025, at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai, where the six franchises picked 24 drivers between them. Autocar Professional reported the slot structure each team had to fill: one experienced international driver, one emerging international or Indian-origin driver, one domestic Indian driver and one female driver. That is what keeps the grid mixed, and it is also why a fast Indian teenager can end up as a team-mate to a driver with a World Endurance or W Series record.

The owners are mostly from film and cricket. Arjun Kapoor has Speed Demons Delhi, Naga Chaitanya has Hyderabad Blackbirds, John Abraham has the Goa team, Sourav Ganguly has Kolkata Royal Tigers, Sudeep has the Bengaluru franchise and Keerthivasan has Chennai Turbo Riders. For a reader used to the IPL, the logic is familiar. The promoter sells city identity and broadcast reach, and the franchise brings money and an audience.

The cars, the points and the swap race

RPPL lists the league car as the Wolf Thunder GB08, built around a homologated carbon monocoque and running an Aprilia RSV4 1.0 engine rated at 201 hp, with a quoted top speed of 290 kph. In the 2025 to 26 season the first three rounds ran those Wolf cars, and the final round at the Goa street circuit switched to the Alpine-powered Mygale M21-F4 used in F4 India.

Scoring is conventional single-seater stuff. A race win pays 25 points down to 1 point for tenth, with one bonus point each for pole and fastest lap. The Goa finale added a third race with a mid-race driver swap, so a team's two paired drivers shared one car in one contest. Raoul Hyman and Fabienne Wohlwend won that entrant title for Goa Aces JA Racing, which also took the teams' championship.

Where F4 India fits, and how a driver gets in

The ladder below the league is the F4 Indian Championship, also run by RPPL, using Mygale Generation 2 (M21-F4) cars with Alpine engines prepared by Oreca. It is the paid, FIA-certified step out of karting, and the champion earns a season in the Formula Regional Indian Championship at no cost. In 2026 the F4 grid has 15 drivers from eight teams and eight nationalities, with Swarnav Das, Bhuvan Bonu and Krishay Gutte among the Indians, and the season opened at Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore in September.

So the practical route is karting, then an F4 India seat, then visibility in the draft pool. The racing itself goes out on Star Sports KHEL, Star's Kannada and Tamil channels, JioHotstar and YouTube, with the 2026 festival due to close at a new Navi Mumbai street circuit.

Sources

• RPPL: Indian Racing League
• RPPL: F4 India Championship
• Autocar Professional: Indian Racing Festival 2025 begins with driver draft in Mumbai
• The Bridge: F4 Indian Championship to open 2026 Indian Racing Festival in Coimbatore
• 2025 to 26 Indian Racing League season record
• F4 Indian Championship