Photo: ACI Sport
Freddie Slater has followed up his Formula Regional European Championship title by being voted driver of the season by the paddock’s team principals and managers.
In a poll conducted by Formula Scout, each of the teams in the championship was asked to submit their ranking of the top 10 drivers for the 2025 season. To maintain objectivity, team principals were not allowed to vote for their own drivers. Points in the poll were awarded on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
Nine team principals participated, giving a maximum theoretical score of 80 points.
While Slater was unsurprisingly the first choice of many, he was not considered the best by all. As with the two previous winners, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Rafael Camara, Slater fell one point short of a perfect score, as one team manager put him behind Matteo De Palo in second place.
The top positions mirrored the overall standings, although there were significant differences between the individual votes cast.
Trident’s De Palo was a clear second, although one team principal did rank him outside the top three.
R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot were as inseparable in the voting as they had been in the overall points standings and finished tied for third place, although Clerot won a head-to-head comparison by five to three.
While the top five lined up in their championship positions, ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato edged past R-ace GP’s Akshay Bohra for sixth by a single vote.
The performances of Sainteloc Racing’s Nikita Bedrin clearly got him noticed by his competitors, who ranked him eighth, three positions higher than his championship position.
Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri and R-ace GP’s Jin Nakamura tied on points for ninth.
A total of 16 drivers received at least one nomination, although surprisingly, only four drivers were included in every team’s top 10 ranking.
Those outside the combined top 10 were VAR’s Hiyu Yamakoshi and Dion Gowda, CL Motorsport’s Michael Belov, ART Grand Prix’s Kanato Le and two drivers who competed in fewer than half the rounds, Reno Francot and Ean Eyckmans, both driving for R-P-M.
Formula Scout would like to thank the following team principals and managers for their time in submitting ratings for the poll:
Ignacio Cristobal (Sainteloc Racing), Keith Donegan (RPM), Tristan Gommendy (Prema), David Li (CL Motorsport), Thibaut de Merindol (R-ace GP), Adrian Munoz (G4 Racing), Matthew Norman (Akcel GP), Mathieu Zangarelli (ART Grand Prix) and Luca Zerbini (Trident). Van Amersfoort Racing did not respond and therefore its drivers’ scores have been adjusted accordingly to ensure comparability.
2025 FREC teams’ driver poll results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Points |
| 1 | Freddie Slater | Prema | 79 |
| 2 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | 71 |
| 3= | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | 56 |
| 3= | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | 56 |
| 5 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | 43 |
| 6 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | 35 |
| 7 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | 31 |
| 8 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | 30 |
| 9= | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | 23 |
| 9= | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | 23 |