Krish Gupta, Rivaan Dev Preetham and Arshi Gupta win national Rotax karting titles at Kartopia, three head to Portimao

India's main karting ladder closed its 2026 season in Bengaluru. The sixth and final round of the MECO-FMSCI National Rotax Max Karting Championship ran at Meco Kartopia, and news agency UNI reported the title round finished on Sunday 18 October. Four national champions came out of it, and three of them have a ticket to the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals in Portugal next month.

The odd part, as UNI noted, is that none of the four champions won their final race. Points across six rounds decided all of it.

Who won what

Krish Gupta of Rayo Racing, Mumbai, took the Senior Max title with 428 points. Arjun Chheda of Crest Motorsport, Pune, finished second on 415 and Akshat Misra of Bengaluru was third on 414. Free Press Journal reported that Gupta qualified only 16th at the final round, made ten overtakes in each heat to finish sixth in both, climbed from sixth to second in the pre-final and then finished third in the final, which was enough. Across the season he scored four podiums, including two wins.

Rivaan Dev Preetham of MSPORT, Chennai, won Junior Max. His weekend was messy. He was caught in a mid-grid incident in the pre-final that left him 15th, then recovered to sixth in the final, and that held off MSPORT team-mate Rishik Rohit Reddy on cumulative points.

Mini Max went to Arshi Gupta of Leapfrog Racing, Faridabad. She is 10, a DPS Faridabad student, and this is her second national title in two years after the Micro Max crown in 2025. Kheltoday reported she clocked eight consecutive fastest laps and broke the track record in the deciding race, and described her as the youngest driver in the world to win the Rotax Max Challenge Mini category.

Micro Max, the entry rung, went to Ayansh Patil of MSPORT, Kolhapur.

Portimao, 7 to 14 November

Krish Gupta, Rivaan Dev Preetham and Arshi Gupta are the three Indians headed to the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals, which Rotax lists for 7 to 14 November at the Kartodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimao, Portugal. Rotax says 432 racers from more than 60 nations will be there. It is the 26th edition of the event and the fifth time it has been held at the Algarve track. Rotax had moved the 2026 dates earlier in the year, saying the change followed an adjustment to the MotoGP schedule.

For the new classes, this is also the first Grand Finals with the electric E10 Mini category on the international stage, alongside E20 Senior and E20 Masters.

What this means if your child wants to race

The structure is simple to understand even if the cost is not. A child starts in Micro Max, moves to Mini Max, then Junior Max, then Senior Max, with each step a bigger engine and a faster kart. The Indian national championship is run over six rounds, and this year the deciding round was at Meco Kartopia in Bengaluru, so families outside the south travel.

The national title itself is the prize that matters most. It is what buys a place on the grid in Portugal against 432 drivers, and Rotax runs the Grand Finals on equipment from its official chassis partners so that the racing is as close to equal as a world final gets. Rivaan Dev Preetham's season is the lesson worth repeating to any parent. He did not win the last race. He finished sixth. He is the national champion because he kept scoring, round after round.

Sources

• Chennai's Rivaan Dev Preetham emerges as Junior Max champ, DT Next
• Krish Gupta Crowned National Karting Champion, Free Press Journal
• Krish Gupta, Rivaan Dev Preetham emerge champions, UNI India
• Krish Gupta and Rivaan Dev Preetham crowned national Karting champions, Afternoon News
• Ten-year-old Arshi Gupta becomes world's youngest to win Rotax MAX Challenge Mini title, Kheltoday
• RMC Grand Finals 2026, Rotax Racing