'Insane': British F1 star Freddie Slater on his rollercoaster Audi debut
On Friday, Freddie Slater went through all the emotions of an average F1 career in just one hour.
The Audi junior driver made his Grand Prix weekend debut in the Mexico City GP’s Free Practice 1, facing real adversity before ending with a real flourish.
Getting behind the wheel of a 2026 F1 car for the first time, he described the feeling of “immense speed” to SPORTBible.
Freddie Slater on driving the Audi Revolut F1 Team car for the first time.
One of the junior scene’s hottest prospects, Freddie Slater is a serial winner. Chalking up a multitude of karting and lower formulae titles, the Warwickshire-born driver was sought after by many F1 teams, but finally made his choice surprisingly late.
He signed up with the Audi Driver Development Programme for the start of this year while competing in the FIA F3 series, and now, at the age of 18, has finally had his chance behind the wheel of a current grand prix car.
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Not that things got off to a smooth start.
As Slater left the pits on his first full run in Mexico’s FP1, it emerged that a piece of team equipment was stuck in his right sidepod, putting his car at risk of overheating, and meaning he had to come in again immediately.
“I didn't realise at the time until we came in,” he says. “And that then meant we had to reset some things because with the altitude and the temperature here, it's critical.
“We lost a lot of track time, but at the end of the day, that's motorsport sometimes. Definitely something I'm used to!”
Slater kept his cool while watching the clock tick down as the team assessed his car, showing a calmness beyond his years.
“We never really got into a rhythm or anything, and we never really got any tyres in a good window or any power unit situations in a proper window, because we never had multiple laps to try things out.
“Definitely a compromised session, but is what is.”
Once Slater got going though, he set a hugely impressive pace right at the end of the session, just one 1.4sec shy of his vastly experienced teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
Slater has tested older Grand Prix machinery in the form of two TPC (Testing Previous Car) runs at the Paul Ricard and Portimao circuits, but never a current-generation 2026 F1 car.
He described the sensation of leaving the pits and then hitting over 200mph heading into Turn 1.
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“It is insane,” he enthuses. “How quickly you get up to that top speed is immense.
“When you put your foot down out of the slow-speed corners, medium-speed corners, and the electrical energy comes in - it just keeps on pulling.
“Going into T1 was a pretty cool feeling for the first time.”
Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is a formidable enough challenge without the technical gremlins.
Running at over 1.3 miles (2.2km) above sea level, the high-altitude track offers little aerodynamic grip due to the thin air, with the semi-street circuit track usually being pretty dusty too.
“Mexico isn't very easy at all with the grip level, especially on a hard tyre as well,” Slater says.
“So the car was very different [to his previous experience] in terms of aero load, and the driving style you have to go with on this sort of track.”
There are few cars Slater will have driven before with this much downforce - how did he believe it would stick in the quickest corners?
“I think it just comes from the preparation,” he says. “And I trust myself by feeling I can catch the car, and I can feel when the car is sliding.
“I'd say high-speed corners are actually one of my strong points in terms of driving styles. I'm not scared to go into a corner and feel what's going to happen.
“For that one lap, you need to just go out and feel it, and that's what I think was the interesting part of yesterday. The coolest bit, let's say.
“I'd say probably the big heavy stops are probably the most difficult on these sorts of tracks because there's such a fine line between too much pressure and too little pressure and not making the corner.
“The margins are very small here for going right and wrong.”
The Brit will get another chance in practice at Brazil next week, but already impressed by setting a strong lap time in such adversity in Mexico, getting his F1 tenure off to a good start.
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This is Audi's first season in F1, having transitioned from life as the privateer Sauber squad to being a factory team.
With Slater being so sought after by top teams, what made him go for the German outfit?
“They felt like a family, it didn't feel like I was going into a business,” he says.
“It felt like I was being supported as a young driver, and they could offer me so much stuff that could help me develop myself into a better racing driver.
“All the different analysis we have after my F3 weekends, all the different little things we can gain.
“The experience of people, [Racing Director and Le Mans-winner] Allan McNish, [CEO and Team Principal] Mattia [Binotto], all the engineers.
“There's so much knowledge in the team that I can gain from. So that's why it was just the right choice for me. I wouldn't want to be with any other F1 team.”
Topics: Formula 1
James Elson