CS Santosh (siːɛs sʌnðəʊsh) (born 1 December 1983) is an Indian off-road and enduro motorcycle racer.

Santosh has also given fresh hope to fellow talented riders that they too can make the step up to the global rally level.

At the age of 17, he watched his first Supercross race in Bangalore and read about the champion, Vijay Kumar, in newspapers the next day.

[3] In a country where aspiring for a full-time career in motorsports is still in a very nascent stage, Santosh has shown the way by becoming the first Indian to participate and complete the Dakar rally.

Santosh is India's most-accomplished rally-raid rider as he has taken part in Dakar Rally for six straight years and completed it thrice.

[5] Few men dream of the enigma that is the Dakar, few find the gall to take it up, and fewer still manage to complete it and still look like they've just come out of the library after an hour-long reading session.

[7] In 2012, he participated in the Raid-de-Himalaya, which is the only Indian motorsport event listed on the off-road rallies calendar of FIM (Federation Internationale Motorcyclisme), Geneva, Switzerland.

[7] Santosh became the first Indian to debut at the World Cross Country Rally Championship in 2013 but an unfortunate fire accident injured him badly during the 3rd stage.

This was a 2200 km long rally spread over six days, making it India's longest off-road motorsport annual event that traversed through the scorching deserts of Rajasthan.

[11] Riding for the Hero Motocorp team in the Dakar 2021 rally, CS Santosh crashed out 135 km into the Stage 4 on a gravel track forcing his retirement.

On what was his seventh attempt at the fabled Dakar Rally, Santosh suffered a heavy crash on a gravel track in Stage 4.