Following a record-breaking pair of campaigns in the Ginetta Junior Championship, Freddie Slater made shockwaves in single-seater racing when he debuted last year. Less than six months on from his maiden outing, he has already got an F4 championship under his belt, a publicly-voted Autosport award to his name and F1 teams showing their interest. Feeder Series unpacks his whirlwind career up to this point in part two of an interview with the Briton.

By George Brabner

Slater had already made a name for himself in karting and the UK’s grassroots Ginetta Junior Championship far before his F4 UAE success. His graduation to cars in late 2022 went almost as smoothly as it could have, leaving karting with two FIA Karting World Championship OK-Junior titles on his impressive resume.

He became the youngest winner of the Ginetta Junior Championship Winter Series at 14 years, three months and four days old. Though that was only the precursor to a dominant 2023 campaign, where he put together a record-breaking season consisting of 13 wins from 18 races – the most of any driver in the series history.

Slater’s following F4 debuts yielded a third-place start in his maiden British F4 race, a standout pole position in Euro 4 and a second-place finish on the streets of Macau, culminating in a packed preparation programme before the 2024 season.

“It was just more track time. It was some race starts. It was some safety car restarts. It’s the rules that you can learn. It’s those little bits and also speed, more time in the car,” he explained.

“It was always the plan to go to Europe from day one. It was always the plan. But we were always going to mix in a few races. We did Macau, we did [the Trophy Race in] Abu Dhabi, we did British F4. So we were always planning to just get that extra little bit of knowledge in my head and then to take it into Europe.”

Having gathered experience in a variety of environments all across Europe, East Asia and now the Middle East – as well as undergoing extensive off-season testing programmes – Slater aimed to make himself as adaptable as possible. 

Looking towards the upcoming years, where he hopes to continue climbing the single-seater ladder, other sporadic races are on the agenda, too.

“I think the biggest thing is adapting. I think if you can adapt to all different situations – like in British F4, tyre temps are really hard to get because it’s so cold most of the time. The tracks are fine margins because there’s not much runoff. Macau’s obviously got absolutely no runoff! 

“So there’s a lot of things I’m adapting to and that’s why I think further down my career, I will jump in different cars. I will jump in a, maybe, hopefully, a Daytona 24-hour race. Maybe a Le Mans race. Maybe a GT race, et cetera, just to have that adaptability. 

“Because not every time, and you watch these Formula 1 drivers, not every time they go out on track and the car’s perfect to what they want, so that’s when you’ve got to use your techniques and what you’ve learned at this point now with that adaptability from these different series so then go, ‘Actually, I remember that from that series. So I can just use that a little bit and tweak it and see if that works,’ instead of just driving around with a problem and being half a second off when you can be two-tenths off.”

“We just didn’t need” F1 team backing

With such an impressive run of results in his single-seater and karting careers so far, Slater made it no secret that he has piqued the interest of multiple Formula 1 teams. However, he revealed to Feeder Series that joining an F1 junior programme was not something he took interest in after karting, and it remains not to be. 

“When a lot of the karting people win world championships, there is a lot of attention. A lot of Formula 1 teams did approach, but at that point, it’s not right. Sometimes contracts aren’t good. Sometimes stuff isn’t right. It’s not the right timing, you don’t need a big name to yourself, to your name, and all of that. 

“So at that time, we just didn’t need it. And we don’t need it at the moment. We’re doing a good job with the people I’ve got,” Slater explained.

He attributes a close relationship with ADD Management, who are behind the careers of McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris, reigning Formula E champion Jake Dennis and Nissan Formula E Team’s Sacha Fenestraz, to one of the primary reasons for this outlook.

“ADD are doing a mega, mega job, and they’re putting me in these good situations with the good teams. Making me learn the most. So I don’t actually need that huge backing and that huge ‘Oh, there’s going to be some Mercedes manager that’s going to come watch you every weekend and tell you little bits.’ 

“I literally want one person, or two people, to rely on. I don’t want to be channelling through loads of people, and that’s what ADD do quite quite well. They don’t just fluster me with four or five different people. It’s two people and that’s it. And the rest of the things that isn’t to do with driving and myself, they take it to their side and they deal with it instead of me having to.

“Because a lot of kids obviously overthink and they start thinking about all those situations. F1 teams, whatever it is, teams et cetera, and it’s like, your job is not that. Your job is to drive fast and win races and win championships. So I think that’s quite crucial what ADD have brought to the table especially.”

Feeling the love

Having secured multiple top-five results across his debut races in British F4, Euro 4 and Italian F4 last year, ‘Freddie Slater’ became the name on fans’ and personnel’s lips alike across the junior single-seater racing world.

But Slater didn’t grasp the extent of the support he had until December 2023, when he won the publicly-voted Autosport National Driver of the Year award. He became the first driver competing in a category below F3-level to win the award since its inception in 1982 and the fourth non-BTCC driver to take home the award in over 20 years. 

“To be honest, for myself, I love the support everyone’s given me at such a young age. When I heard the Autosport name, I was like, ‘Wait a minute, are you sure?’ And I got up and I was like, ‘Alright!’

“At that point then, I think the Autosport award was quite important because, until that point, I didn’t think there was that many people out there that was watching what I was doing, supporting me. 

“I knew there was people internally that watched me and thought I was doing a good job or told me I was doing a bad job or whatever it was, but then to have that Autosport award was like a wake-up. I was like, ‘People actually are supporting me. They do like who I am. I’m doing a good job. And I just need to keep doing the same thing,’” Slater said.

One could therefore assume that the eyes on his career translate into pressure on his shoulders, but Slater disagrees, focusing on the positives of having a strong network of support.

“For me, I don’t feel pressure. I just do the best I can when I’m on track. But that’s what I’ve 100% given it so I can’t do much more than that. If my best isn’t good enough, then it’s not good enough and that’s just how it works,” he said. 

“I don’t feel too much pressure from that [award]. It’s just nice to have people surrounding you and they’re watching your stuff, people that don’t know about racing. 

“Like, to win against Ash Sutton [2023 BTCC champion]… like the whole of Britain knows about British touring cars! Everyone knows about British touring cars. And for an F4 driver that’s just won only Ginettas – Ginettas is massive, but nobody really votes for a Ginetta Junior Driver – and then get a few good results in F4 and suddenly I’m an Autosport winner. And I was like, ‘Wow, people do obviously like what I’m doing.’ It was a huge, huge moment in my career, I’d say.”

“A crazy, crazy year and a half”

It’s been a whirlwind last 18 months for Slater that hasn’t gone without sacrifice from the 15-year-old or his family, but he’s relishing the life he is fortunate to live as he establishes himself in single-seaters.

“The last couple of years with karting was quite hectic, being out in Europe all the time because we were literally out every weekend, Wednesday to Sunday night. And then school for two days, Wednesday to Sunday night. So that was quite a hectic time. 

“But now in car racing, it’s kind of a bit more broken up. You get stints where it’s really busy, then you get like a couple of weeks off, weekends off so nice to see the family, do stuff that I wouldn’t [normally do]. 

“Like I’m going to go and watch my brother [Alfie] quite a lot now if I can go and see him when he’s driving Ginetta Juniors this year and kind of just support him, support my family, do stuff with them,” Slater said.

He has started his single-seater journey in the best way possible and thus rightly took time off to recharge following his F4 UAE championship win, speaking to Feeder Series from a resort in the Maldives. But there’s a long way to go and many more years of work in between him and the pinnacle of motorsport, which he is incredibly aware of.

“I wouldn’t say I live a completely regular life! It’s quite busy. Always in the gym, always training, always trying to make myself better. 

“And we’re busy with racing. There’s a lot of test days that the team organised, so the team do a mega job to make sure all the drivers are prepped. We actually do quite a lot of days, especially with these high-level teams, because the running you can do in these lower categories compared to what you can do in F2, F3 is extraordinary. So I’m just kind of like going through the flow. 

“I do get times [off], like this week was super because I had literally a week of just stopping training in the gym, sleeping well, eating well after a hectic two months. And then now we prep again,” he said.

“It’s obviously been a crazy, crazy year and a half, let’s say, but to be honest, I’m loving it. I love being in a car. I can’t wait to be back in the car again, and then we drive it again and see what we can learn even more.”

He sums it up with a smile on his face: “I think once school’s over this year, I think my life will be a little bit more calm because I’m not worried about finishing schoolwork and stuff! But yeah, no, it’s not too bad at the moment.”

Header photo credit: JEP