Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Recently announced Audi Formula 1 junior Freddie Slater claims he was “surprised” at his and Trident’s pace in FIA Formula 3’s pre-season test in Barcelona.
Slater embarks on his first full season in F3 with following a successful stint in Formula Regional in which he won the European championship and finished runner-up in the Asian championship and Oceania trophy.
The 17 year-old also already boasts an F3 podium having driven in two rounds of the 2025 season.
“For me I’m just focusing on this year,” explained Slater. “It’s another year for myself with some new team members on my side and a new team in a very challenging championship with very limited running.”
Slater and Trident begin the season as a pre-season favourite, given the Italian team has steered the last three F3 champions to glory.
“The team has done an amazing job the last couple of years,” said Slater. “They’ve had amazing results but everyone catches up and gets better so we cant sit back and relax.”
“That’s what I really like about Trident: even with all the success they’ve had they continue to keep pushing and are always trying to find that one percent more. That suits me as a driver as I’m pretty similar in that regard.”
Despite this, Slater says he didn’t expect to perform as strongly as he did across the three days of the Barcelona pre-season test. He had the quickest time on both the first and second days and the best time of the test overall, 0.288 seconds ahead of team-mate Noah Stromsted.
“I knew we were in a good place but I probably didn’t expect to be as fast as we were,” he said.
“I did a good job and I was happy with how I drove so it was quite a strong test. The team gave me a great car straight away to improve my driving. At the end of the day every lap counts and if we don’t make the most of it now we’re going to get to Melbourne and be unprepared.”
Slater was the first driver to be signed to Audi’s driver development programme and admitted that the chances of an F1 opportunity opening up for him was a key part in his decision to sign with the German manufacturer.
“Probability of getting into F1 is a high factor when joining an academy because obviously there is only 22 seats, that aren’t always open,” Slater explained.
“You’ve got very cool people like Allan McNish around you and other very special people so there were many key reasons why we joined them. I can’t wait to start building my future with them.”
Slater added that there are “no expectations” from Audi upon his F3 season, saying: “That’s not the way we work as a team. Every time I go out on track I’m harder on myself than anyone else. At the end of the day they know I’m pushing hard and they know that I can deliver.”