Team MRF Tyres sealed the 2026 European Rally Championship (ERC) teams’ title after Martins Sesks and co-driver Renars Francis won the season finale in Portugal. This hands the Indian team its fourth ERC title, adding to those won in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
- MRF wins teams’ title with an advantage of 98 points
- Martins Sesks wins season finale in Portugal
After tasting success in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship, MRF Tyres joined the ERC in 2020. With the championship competing through varying terrain, temperatures, loads and driving conditions, MRF identified this as a useful development ground to identify performance gaps and refine tyre designs. Back in 2022, it even became the first-ever Indian manufacturer to win a championship in top-level European rallying. It has since added three more ERC titles to that collection.
For the final round, MRF fielded six crews across its parent team, as well as the MRF Tyres Dealers team. Sesks, who also competes in the World Rally Championship, won the race after late heartbreak for his teammate Roope Korhonen.
Sesks held a 10.5 second lead over Korhonen after leg one, but his Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2 then suffered a damper issue and this left him trailing his Finnish rival by 10.6 seconds with just three stages to go.
The rally delivered another twist in the closing stages when Korhonen’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 dropped into two-wheel drive mode, allowing Sesks to take victory.
“We worked a lot towards this,” said Sesks. “Of course, it wasn’t easy for us and Roope today, as we both had some technical issues. The pace we were setting both yesterday and today meant we had to push really hard. Yesterday was all about giving everything from the beginning, while today was more about understanding what we could and couldn’t do. In the end, we played it safe, and it paid off. A huge thank you to MRF Tyres for their support and hard work. It’s just a shame we couldn’t bring home a one-two finish for the team.”
Sesks win handed MRF Tyres a total of 233 points to win the teams’ title – 98 points clear of second-placed team Racing Factory Motorsport Solutions.
Stephen Raj Antony
Saptarshi Mondal
