Sometimes lady luck just doesn’t shine on you. In 2008 she certainly had little time for Alpinestars backed Formula Renault driver, Riki Christodoulou, as his campaign was blighted with accidents and mechanical issues preventing him from making an assault on the championship.

The season started off in promising fashion with a win in the opening round at Brands Hatch, It was just the start he was hoping for having signed off the 2007 season in a similar vein.

In both the race weekends at Rockingham and Donington, Riki managed to make it onto the podium and keep in touch with the early series leaders. However Riki’s performance of the season was to come at the following round at Thruxton.

After a stirring performance in the opening race of the day, when he managed to finish in second position, he was determined that he could get more out of the car and push on for the win in race two. Riki was on it, lapping consistently quickly and putting heavy pressure on his cousin and race leader, Adam Christodoulou. The pressure paid off when he was able to force his way through into the lead. The arrival of the safety car didn’t help matters after a high speed spill around the back straight, but Riki was able to deal with the pressure and move away from the field on the restart to take his second victory of the season.

Unfortunately for Riki, from this point on his campaign started to go downhill with several drivers using Riki’s Formula Renault machine as a bumper car causing him to lose valuable points in the championship chase. Couple that with the fact that a pre-season technical gremlin reappeared to ruin another race for Riki and he found himself slipping down the leaderboard.

Not one to give in though, Riki battled through a tough mid season and managed to turn things around finishing the season on the podium with a hard earned third place in the final round at Brands Hatch. After a tough season, Riki managed to finish in fifth place in the standings and stepped on to the podium 10 times out of the 20 races. It was a very trying year for the young driver, but one where he certainly learnt a lot.