Riki Christo undertaking Irish Stepdance

Riki James Christodoulou (born 15 July 1988) is a British racing driver, born in

Sutton Coldfield Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton ( ), is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south ...

. His cousin Adam Christodoulou is also a British Racing Driver.

Career

Karting

Christodoulou began racing in 1996, and has raced karts in the UK,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

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, including winning at Spa, and in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. However, it wasn't until 1999 when he started to make waves on the British karting circuit. He won the Shennington Kart Club's Formula Cadet class, edging out cousin Adam by only two points – 217 to 215. Both Christodoulous struggled the following season, with Adam coming 7th and Riki 14th. Riki got the edge on Adam in the National Cadet Championship, with Riki finishing 5th, 60 points behind champion Alexander Sims. After a somewhat disappointing 2001 in the TKM class, Riki moved into the Intercontinental A Junior class for 2002. 5th place in the Super 1 JICA Championship led him towards a championship campaign in 2003. He did indeed win the championship, edging out Freddie Martin-Dye by just 2 points. He and Martin-Dye both moved up into the main ICA class, and Riki finished joint third in the championship – amazingly missing out on the title by 3 points, finishing tied with Dan Cruttenden.

Formula A Formula 5000 (or F5000) was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars tha ...

beckoned and Riki ended 2005 with two runner-up positions – losing to Jason Edgar in the British Open and Mark Litchfield in Super 1 (Riki tied with Gary Catt and Jason Parrott for second). Riki's final season of karting came in 2006, when he had another 2nd – this time coming in the European Championship – beaten only by legendary

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Marco Ardigò.

Formula Renault

Riki moved up to Formula Renault for the 2006 UK Winter Series. Driving for Fortec Motorsports team, Riki finished 5th in the championship, which was dominated by French interloper Franck Mailleux. He competed in the main championship for the first time in 2007. Riki had a solid season, with 7 podiums including a maiden victory coming at the final round at Thruxton leaving him sixth in the championship. Another Winter Series campaign followed, and while the series was dominated the non-points-scoring

Valtteri Bottas Valtteri Viktor Bottas (; born 28 August 1989) is a Finnish racing driver currently competing in Formula One for Alfa Romeo, having previously driven for Mercedes from to and Williams from to . Bottas has scored race wins and podiums. H ...

, Christo finished runner-up behind Richard Singleton. Riki also won a round of the

Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup The Formula Renault Northern European Cup (formerly Formula Renault 2.0 NEC) was a Formula Renault 2.0 championship originally held in Northern Europe (Germany, Netherlands and Belgium), but has expanded over the years to the whole of Europe. The ...

Oschersleben Oschersleben () is a town in the Börde district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The population in 1905 was 13,271, in 2020 about 19,000. History On November 23, 994 Oschersleben was first mentioned in a document by the Emperor Otto III. In 1235 ...

. A sophomore season of FRUK occurred in 2008, and again Riki scored consistently, with nine podiums and two wins for a fifth place overall championship standing. Cousin Adam went on to win the title with 7 wins and eleven podiums.

Formula Three

Riki was looking to move up into the

British Formula 3 Championship The British Formula Three Championship was an international motor racing series that took place primarily in the United Kingdom with a small number of events in mainland Europe. It was a junior-level feeder formula that used small single seat ...

for the 2009 season, and at the first pre-season test, Riki was underneath the Formula Three lap record at

Snetterton Snetterton is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. The village is about east-northeast of Thetford and southwest of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of . The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census recorded a parish population o ...

. On 3 April 2009 Christodoulou signed a deal to drive for

Fortec Motorsport Fortec Motorsport Ltd. is a motor-racing team that races in the GB3 Championship. The team was bought in 1995 by current owner Richard Dutton. Past drivers for the team include Juan Pablo Montoya, Gianmaria Bruni, Danny Watts, Jamie Green, Jame ...

in the series. Riki took his first win in the series at Snetterton, holding off championship leader

Daniel Ricciardo Daniel Joseph Ricciardo ( "Ricardo", ; born 1 July 1989) is an Italian-Australian racing driver who last raced in Formula One driving for McLaren, under the Australian flag. He made his debut at the 2011 British Grand Prix with the HRT ...

, Walter Grubmüller and

Renger van der Zande Renger van der Zande (born 16 February 1986) is a Dutch racing driver who currently competes in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Chip Ganassi Racing. He is the son of the 1978 National Dutch Rallycross Champion Ronald van der Zan ...

. He had one win and four podiums in 2009, unfortunately having 5 DNF's during the season, costing him a lot of points. He finished fifth overall in the championship standings, also being the Top Rookie. Christodoulou returned to Formula Renault UK in 2010 for the last half of the season with

CRS Racing CRS Racing is a British auto racing team founded by British driver Andrew Kirkaldy and Canadian-Greek driver and entrepreneur Chris Niarchos. The team was founded in 2007, but is based on the former team of Kirkaldy known as Team AKA which comp ...

for one round, then

for the latter and finished 11th in points with one win and four podiums. He returned to British F3 in 2011 for three race meetings and finished 12th in points for

Hitech Racing Hitech Grand Prix (formerly known as Hitech Racing) is a British motor racing team. It was founded in 2002 by Dennis Rushen and David Hayle. The team started racing in the British Formula 3 Championship in 2003. The team also competed in the So ...

with one win and three podiums.

Sports cars

In 2012 Christodoulou left open-wheel cars for sports cars and competed in the GT3 class of the

British GT Championship The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports GT ...

in a

Team WFR A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to infor ...

Ginetta G55 The Ginetta G55 is a specialist sports car, which has been built by Ginetta Cars since 2011. It is built to the FIA GT3 regulations, and the cars are raced in a one-make series; the Ginetta GT Supercup. In addition to this, they are also used in ...

. He competed in seven races but failed to score.

References

External links

Christodoulou's official siteChristodoulou's Profile on Driver DatabaseChristodoulou on Renault SportChristodoulou interviewed on Formula Kart Stars
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christodoulou, Riki 1988 births Living people British people of Greek descent Greek Cypriot people English racing drivers French Formula Renault 2.0 drivers Formula Renault 2.0 NEC drivers British Formula Renault 2.0 drivers British Formula Three Championship drivers British GT Championship drivers International GT Open drivers Karting World Championship drivers Hitech Grand Prix drivers Fortec Motorsport drivers CRS Racing drivers Sportspeople from Sutton Coldfield