British F1 newcomer has a tough first lap in his career
Freddie Slater looks like he could be Britain’s next big F1 star, but his very first time driving a grand prix car was quite a wild ride.
The 18-year-old was one of 10 rookies taking part in Free Practice 1 at the Mexico City GP, driving for Audi.
Slater has been shining as a young driver in recent years, with many F1 teams eager to sign him. But his first grand prix weekend didn’t go as smoothly as hoped.
During the season, F1 teams have to let rookies take part in two FP1 sessions per car (rookies are drivers who’ve raced in two or fewer grands prix).
Slater, who joined Audi as a junior driver for 2026, was chosen to replace Gabriel Bortoletto in Mexico — but things got tricky fast.
When he went out on track, the team noticed a cooling fan had been left inside the car’s right sidepod, which could cause it to overheat.
“We have to box this lap. We have an issue,” Slater was told on the radio, and he had to come back to the pits to get it fixed.
After that, the car had trouble starting up again, and Slater struggled to get moving.
When he finally got back on track, things still weren’t great. After just six laps, his engineer told him, “Turn the engine off, we will not continue.”
His session didn’t get easier, but then he got another chance. On his third outing, he managed to do a few laps before locking up badly and going off at the first corner, earning a track limits warning.
But Slater finished strong — near the end of the session, he put in a lap that was just over a second slower than his very experienced teammate Nico Hulkenberg, and about 2.8 seconds behind the fastest driver, Charles Leclerc.
The good news is, Slater will get another shot soon—he’s set to run FP1 again in Brazil next week!