Having proven his potential during multiple one-off Formula 4 appearances late in 2023, Freddie Slater entered his first full-time campaign in singleseaters, the 2024 F4 UAE season, with lofty expectations to live up to. He entered the season finale 14 points behind the championship leader but three top-five finishes saw him secure the title crown, although he wasn’t quite satisfied as he left the Dubai Autodrome. The star-bound Slater reviewed the Middle Eastern season with Feeder Series in part one of our interview.

By George Brabner

Slater kicked off the F4 UAE season with two victories and another three podiums in the opening six races. But his early championship lead quickly diminished after a difficult round three – which saw him go without a podium – and a pointless round four that was headlined by a dramatic first-lap collision with rival Keanu Al Azhari. Demoted to second in the standings before the season finale, he had ground to make up.

Whilst he was intent on turning the tides on his string of poor results, round five at the Dubai Autodrome started with difficulties. Slater qualified 13th in Q1 and fourth in Q2 with his teammate Kean Nakamura-Berta, who was third in the standings and within touching distance of the championship lead, taking back-to-back pole positions.

Slater told Feeder Series that it was “a technical issue” with his Prema-operated Mumbai Falcons car that was holding him back, although he was still able to salvage a top-five starting position from the scenario.

“We had a technical issue in Q1, but because the tyre peak is so short, we only had one push lap. It caught me so off guard in my first push lap. So in Q2, I kind of knew what I was expecting, what was going to be the problem, so I kind of just had to rag it,” Slater explained.

Performing under pressure

Entering the finale weekend only 12 points ahead of teammate Nakamura-Berta, who was only one race victory from the championship lead, Slater said that “there was a lot of tension and a lot of pressure” from within the Mumbai Falcons team. 

He recognised that “the odds were against us” after qualifying, having finished outside the top ten once, and thus the mindset was simple: “just do my best and just see what happens.”

But the Briton went on to execute a clean weekend without any incidents. Race one saw the top three converge in the standings, with Slater slipping to third just four points behind leader Al Azhari. A clinical climb to fifth place kept him in touch.

Race two told a similar story, battling from 13th to fourth as Al Azhari climbed just one position, putting him only three points behind the Emirati going into the last race of the season. 

Off the line in the season-deciding race three, Slater instantly inherited third from a fourth-place starting position. With Nakamura-Berta unable to take the lead of the race and therefore the crucial seven points he needed, Slater secured the championship crown by four points.

“It was mega to win the championship and do it in a controlled way through the weekend.

“But I was actually a little bit disappointed in the end because I was a bit annoyed that I didn’t have the pace in race three. I seemed to struggle a little bit more. But we were actually suffering the technical problems in race one still from quali,” Slater said.

“I don’t know if it was a little bit of me, a little bit of everything, and we couldn’t tweak it. Obviously, once you’re out on track, you’re out on track. So I think that kind of did disappoint me a little bit after the race, but also I was super happy to win the championship.

“But, yeah, I think there was some key bits that we took away from that. We dug into the data, we are digging into it at the moment, to kind of see what was the difference.” 

With his first title in single-seaters under his belt, Slater “did take a lot of joy out of it at the end of it,” but the work is not done for him yet, as two more F4 campaigns remain on the horizon after the UAE winter series.

“I was super happy, but I’m just that person that I’m so big into racing, and I so badly want to get to Formula 1, that wherever I can be better and if I don’t do everything perfect, or if everything’s not perfect, I still do have that little bit of angriness inside because I just want to do everything to perfection, which is how I’ve been built since I was young.

“I was also super happy, like I say, but also now we’ve got to go focus on the Italian F4 because US [Racing] might come out and they might be as fast as they were at the end of the year compared to Prema. So then, now we need to make another step to go in front of them. 

“At this point now, we’ve got to really start chipping along, make sure every test day we do, we don’t miss one session without learning, [that] we’re always learning something. So, yeah, I’m fully focused on winning the Italian Championship now and doing the best possible job I can, especially for myself and the team and everybody around me. I think it’s time to do it.”

The summer ahead

Whilst Slater lost his official rookie status due to the seven F4 rounds he competed in last year, the F4 UAE season marked his maiden full-time campaign. Italian F4 and Euro 4 assaults lie ahead, which made the UAE championship crucial for Slater to prepare for the summer.

Experience with new tracks, weather conditions, rival drivers, race formats and the Giti compound that Slater said “was literally like a new tyre again from the year before” will all play to his advantage, but his biggest takeaway was in regards to mentality. 

“I think it’s quite important to be open-minded,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of stuff that goes on in the weekends with different teams. I think it’s quite important to be open-minded about the whole situation and also a lot of bad luck does come, because in the first two rounds, we were good. We were fast. We were happy. We were pushing on. 

“Everything was going our way, and then it flipped, and then it went back to our side again. So I think there is going to be weekends where I go to, and it might not go our way, but I’ve still got to do damage limitation. So I think that’s quite important, and then obviously points make prizes.

“I think it was just a good experience in UAE with the dirty air, with the reverse grids. If you ever do get that position in Italian F4, you know what to do. I think there’s some key rules there that you can learn from, the way people race and what you can get away with, what you can’t. And there’s some key insights that we know internally that we need to make sure we’re on top of.”

Instrumental in Mumbai Falcons’ second consecutive team’s championship victory, Slater found himself as the squad’s leader amongst its four drivers at times in the season. But his focus was placed on mutual benefit for the long term – a key characteristic of his approach that he touched on with Feeder Series before the finale.

“I don’t try and just be that selfish person in the team. I do try and help the team quite a lot. Especially the engineers because I think the engineers need that feedback because some of them have never driven a car before, so I think it’s quite important to kind of take that role as soon as you get in the team to go, ‘Look, this is what we need. I think this is what the other cars are doing.’ 

“That’s all that sort of mindset which I think will only make me better because, obviously, when you get to F2 and F1, a lot of the parts that they can change is quite big compared to an F4 car because an F4 car is quite small. So I think that’s quite a good way to kind of be about it at this point so I can take it into my future.”

Header photo credit: F4 UAE