Lando Norris became the most recent British driver to win a Grand Prix when he beat Max Verstappen to the chequered flag in Miami last year, and with the likes of Oliver Bearman and Arvid Lindblad showing immense potential, the future for motorsport in the United Kingdom is bright. There is another driver on the 25-year-old’s radar, though.
When asked to form his own fantasy Formula One team with two young stars, he picked out McLaren junior driver Alex Dunne, who is competing for the Formula Two championship this year, and 17-year-old Freddie Slater. Slater is one of the most interesting prodigies on the F1 feeder series ladder. The Warwickshire-born starlet arrived in single-seaters with a stacked karting resume, bagging nine titles, including European Championships in the OK-J and KZ2 classes.
While still in karting, he completed his debut seasons in the Ginetta Junior Championship and Winter Series in 2022, winning the latter with three wins from four races. He backed this up the following year, returning to the Ginetta Junior Championship and winning a staggering 16 of the 20 events on the schedule.
More success followed in 2024. He beat the likes of Alpine’s Kean Nakamura-Berta and Mercedes duo Alex Powell and Doriane Pin to the Formula Four UAE Championship before demolishing a strong Italian F4 field, winning 15 of the 20 races and scoring 11 pole positions.
Slater made the expected step up to Formula Regional in 2025, and with four rounds of the campaign remaining, he leads the standings by 16 points with five victories to his name. Most promising, however, was Slater’s foray into the Formula Three championship.
The teenager stepped into the AIX Racing squad for a one-round cameo in Bahrain and qualified in the top 10, before finishing second in the reverse-grid sprint race on debut. He later scored a reverse-grid pole position in Belgium, racing for Hitech TGR.
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A full-time F3 campaign in 2025 is almost certainly heading Slater’s way, and the teenager can look ahead to the recent rises of Bearman and Lindblad if he continues to dazzle. He may not be tied to an F1 academy yet, but with significant financial backing behind him and the talent to match, it is only a matter of time before interest starts to accumulate.
Speaking to Autosport about his prospects, Slater’s former Ginetta Juniors boss, Jamie Ross, explained: “Everyone speaks of Freddie as an individual, but I think Freddie Slater is a team of people.
“It’s the effort that everyone has put in, his management, his performance coach Craig Boyd – everything has no stone unturned. There’s no other goal but to make an F1 driver out of him. There’s no arrogance about it, but just so much confidence.”