Denis Kiriakopoulos

Denis Kiriakopoulos, 1982, Switzerland

Hobby: sim-racing (what is sim-racing ?)

Other hobbies: Basketball, Tennis, Badminton

How everything started

I discovered my passion for sim-racing at the age of 10, with a game running on an old 80486: Grand Prix Circuit (by Accolade). But several years were needed to see the first game that had online capabilities, and more accurate simulation of the real F1: Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation 2. With this game, I started to play more seriously as I was using a steering wheel and pedals to drive. But the poor connection speeds (28.8K) prevented me from playing online.

In June 2003, EA's F1 Challenge 99-02 was the game that brought sim-racing to another level: better physics, better graphics, online capabilities, official licence. Leagues were put in place to organize online races, championships. After about a year of offline practice, I made my first F1 online race, on the Chinese track.

2005-2009

I played five seasons in a highly ranked F1 league, Formula-Simracing (FSR). The races were streamed live, with commentators. There were also prices for the winner and sponsors started to show interest. We played a game called rFactor, which was the reference in sim-racing.

As highlights, I won the 2005 Ace championship, and I achieved a 4th place in Australia in World Championship. I was also lucky to have Bono Huis and Bruno Marques as teammates at some point.

The league became extremely competitive in 08 and 09 as new talents emerged. With less and less time to dedicate to FSR, I struggled in 09 and lost motivation to complete the season. I retired from the league.

2009-2012

iRacing was released in 2008 and I quickly joined. I did a few races, but not very serious competition. My Logitech G27 broke down and that was the nail in the coffin for sim-racing

From 2020

I bought a Logitech G29 and joined again iRacing. Thanks to an old friend's advice from the FSR era (Joakim Bengtsson), I joined the Radical community where I started again to race competitively.