Freddie Slater will make his Formula 1 race-weekend debut with Audi in first practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix, followed by another FP1 appearance in Sao Paulo.<\/p>\n
The two sessions give the 18-year-old development driver experience inside a Grand Prix weekend before his move to Formula 2 with Invicta Racing in 2027. He finished runner-up in this year’s Formula 3 championship with Trident.<\/p>\n
Slater became the first driver signed to Audi’s development program earlier this year. The practice assignments are another step in that program, not an announcement of a Formula 1 race seat.<\/p>\n
Speaking in the FIA’s Friday press conference at Austin, Audi racing director Allan McNish said the opportunity reflected more than results alone.<\/p>\n
It’s pretty clear he’s got talent. It’s pretty clear that he’s got the attitude and the work ethic to do it, he said.<\/p>\n
McNish also emphasized a measured approach: Slater must learn the car while doing useful work for the team, rather than treating an hour of practice as a qualifying audition.<\/p>\n
Mexico City and Sao Paulo bring different demands, but the immediate objective is the same. Complete the program, provide clear feedback and leave the engineers with data they can use.<\/p>\n
For a young driver, getting the call is the milestone. Making the next call an easy one is the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freddie Slater will make his Formula 1 race-weekend debut with Audi in first practice at the Mexico City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-944067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}