Reigning JICA British Champion Riki Christodoulou got his National BTE Lawline/Renault MSA ICA campaign off to a quiet start this weekend at the Three Sisters circuit in Wigan. The 15 year old, competing in his first senior national event, scored 5th position from the first final and then a collision with another driver forced a non-score in the second race.

At one of the fastest circuits in the country ‘Christo’ qualified in a respectable third position only two hundredths of a second away from the top time before going on to notch 4th followed by a 3rd in the two heats.

Starting the first final from 5th place Christodoulou suffered from a lack of top speed. Although continually bumped down the order negotiating the long straight, he managed to head the bustling front-running group and force his way to second spot a number of times throughout the rest of the lap.

The second final was written off after the youngster pushed for a gap fighting within the top four and clashed with the driver he was trying to overtake. Christo will now almost certainly have to drop the result from his end of season tally under the Championship rules that allows drivers to scrub their two worst finishes from the 6 round and 12 race series.

The team tried out a new Birel engine during Friday and Saturday practice alongside their more customary Tony Kart kit and elected for the latter during the races.

“We simply were not fast enough today and we had a lot of work to do with the kart, “commented father and team manager Rick Christodoulou. “The result is disappointing in terms of the Championship but at least we proved that we are fast enough to be at the front and we will only get quicker.”

The team now have a fortnight break before heading to local circuit Shenington on 20th/21st of March for the last round of 2004 Formula Super Libre series. The next round of the British Championship takes place on the 3rd/4th April at PF International.