Audi Formula 1 junior Freddie Slater charged to his maiden Formula 3 victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix Feature Race, and with that, championship lead
The British driver has delivered a stunning rookie season. Slater has found himself on the podium at least once in every round of the F3 championship thus far, and the first victory has finally come.
With his consistency and determination, he has now earned 130 points, and there are still two more rounds to go.
Slater the media, including Motorsport Week: “That one’s special. It’s been coming for a while. I think we just haven’t quite had that race pace to just maximise the result.
“We put ourselves in quite difficult situations, and then today we controlled the race really well. We maximised the Safety Car restarts, but also the VSCs. I was very on it with the deltas and everything, and we managed to pull a win at the end.
“It was a tricky race with degradation and marbles, and loads of different factors. Also, the tarmac here is changing every run. So it was a tricky race, but a really enjoyable one.”
Safety Car Restarts
Slater started the Feature Race from P2. With a bit of a messy start, the Brit battled with Tuukka Taponen and made contact. After Taponen had to pit, Slater was the leader of the race.
After his championship rival, Ugo Ugochukwu, moved into second, Slater had to fight hard to defend his position and keep the Campos driver behind. When the final Safety Car restart came, he managed to quickly drive away to create a lead of over a second.
Asked if the Safety Car restart was the winning move today, Slater explained: “I think it was going to be controlled no matter what. It was just, do you want to take the pressure early on or do you want to wait to the end? It’s just a bit of a different strategy, I guess.
“I tried, and yeah, I guess it worked at that point. But then you still have to think there were still five, six laps to go, and that was kind of the crucial part of the race with the degradation. So I knew that kind of those last five laps were the most tricky part of the race up until that point. I just knew I had to manage in a certain way, and we did the job.”
Speaking about how the interruptions affected his tyre management and build-up, Slater explained: “Yeah, very tricky race with all the VSCs and Safety Cars.
“You create a gap, you’re in the rhythm, then you have to stop again, and you go again, then you have to think of a new Safety Car restart or whatever the situation is. It’s never easy, especially here with all the marbles.
“The pick-up on the tyres seemed quite bad, very dusty as well. So, those first laps after the Safety Car weren’t easy, and also quite gusty here. It wasn’t easy Safety Car restarts, but we knew Formula 3 is like this sometimes and we had to manage it well.”
Championship battle
While there are still two more rounds to go before the F3 season concludes, the championship battle has been tight throughout. With Ugochukwu having led the championship before Slater took over, the two have been fighting hard all season to see who will come out on top.
Going into the summer break, only 8 points separate the rivals. Asked what it is going to take to secure the Drivers’ Championship, Slater said: “It’s just going to take execution.
“I think it’s been clear that just no mistakes and just kind of finishing where you can. Having a good qualifying, just doing the 98 per cent laps and 99 per cent laps and getting a lap on the board, and then fighting in the races.
“It’s very chaotic in the Sprint Race, especially. Now, it’s a beautiful way to go into the summer break. It’s perfect. Now we have a bit of relaxation time, nice time with the family, and then we get back to it at Monza.”
Being on top of the Drivers’ Standings can be a solid confidence boost. However, when margins are so narrow in F3, one cannot be too comfortable, even when being in the lead.
Still, when Slater was asked about how much confidence being the championship leader gives him, he said: “For me, it’s not changed too much. We’ve been doing the same kind of plan since the start of the season.
“We’ve had seven podiums and now a win in seven weekends. It’s incredible for a rookie. I think it’s just been about execution, just finding those little couple of half tenths, a tenth. That kind of made the difference in winning the race today. We improved a lot overnight; that was definitely for sure.
“Yesterday, we struggled a little bit, and generally our race pace has struggled. So I think it’s been a good weekend in terms of how we worked as a team to kind of develop and move forward in the race pace, especially.
A “tricky track”
The Hungaroring is often referred to as ‘Monaco without walls’ due to the nature of the track and its difficulty to overtake. Even if a driver is closely behind the car ahead, the overtake takes time and can only be done without error at certain points of the track.
Asked about the difficulty of following another car for multiple laps around the circuit, Slater said: “In the Sprint Race yesterday, it was very difficult to kind of set up an overtake.
“You’re trying to get a tyre delta on the guy in front by being behind, which is not the easiest thing at all. So you’re always trying to manage the tyres better than the guy in front while still being behind.
“Then, you get an opportunity later in the race, but with this track, once you get past T2, there are no real opportunities until you get back to the main straight. So, it’s a very difficult track to manage.
“And you can play the game in sector two a lot with the tyres. It’s one of the most tricky tracks to overtake for sure. But it does involve a lot of clean execution when you’re driving because the line discipline here is quite big.
“If you go a tiny bit too wide, the marbles are crazy. So it’s easy to throw the car off and ruin the race, so yeah, it’s a tricky track for that.”
Target for the last rounds
The Audi junior has already been massively impressive and will be eager to continue his podium run over the next two rounds.
He spoke about his target for the remainder of the season. Slater said: “For me, I think it’s very important to have a nice summer break now in August, and just reset and then come back with the team towards the end of August when we go for our test.
“It’s important to focus on the last two rounds. I think Monza is an interesting weekend for Formula 3. It’s always very chaotic. So that’s kind of going to be important to just clean execution.
“Then, Madrid, I think, is going to be even more interesting. A completely new track for everyone. Two Feature Races, over 50 points available on the weekend, and that’s a lot of points.
“So if you clean up, you can get the job done easily. So yeah, the goal is to put it on pole in both the last two rounds and win all the races. Simple as that.”
Previously, F3 would end their season in Monza. In 2026, the season will end in Madrid at the new circuit, Madring. In addition to being a new circuit on the calendar, the round will have one additional Qualifying session and two Feature Races.
READ MORE: Audi F1 junior Freddie Slater takes championship lead with Hungarian F3 Feature win
Discussion about this post