Freddie Slater – the 14-year-old WONDERKID on a fast track to F1

Freddie Slater

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Freddie Slater – the 14-year-old WONDERKID on a fast track to F1

He's one of karting's brightest prospects and is now dominating a championship Lando Norris couldn't

Joe Ellis

Sunday 16 July 2023 22:55

F1 teams are always looking for who could be the next Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen and Freddie Slater could be just that.

The 14-year-old Brit has rapidly risen up through the karting ranks and on Sunday (9 July) he became the KZ2 European Karting champion in Italy.

That is just the tip of the iceberg which recently saw Red Bull boss Helmut Marko speaking to Slater's agent Mark Berryman of ADD Management.

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Berryman also runs F2 rookie and Red Bull junior Zane Maloney as well as F1 star Lando Norris, both of whom scored podiums at Silverstone on the same day as Slater's European triumph.

Exactly what or who Berryman and Marko were discussing is only known to them but it would be surprising if the teenager's name hasn't at least been mentioned.

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Record breaker

Slater is now at an age where he can race cars as well as karts and he wasted no time in becoming a force to be reckoned with.

In the 2022 Ginetta Winter Series, the 14-year-old became the youngest-ever Ginetta champion and quite possibly the youngest champion in cars of all time given the age restrictions in place across the world.

He has taken that form into the 2023 Ginetta Junior Championship where he has won 15 out of 18 races so far.

Slater is a banker for the overall title in his rookie year which is something even Norris couldn't do back in 2014 as he finished third behind Jack Mitchell, now in GT racing, and James Kellett who races in Porsches.

The big hurdle Slater has to overcome next is the transition to single-seaters, something that Norris did with ease, winning MSA Formula, Toyota Racing Series, two Formula Renault titles and European Formula 3 all at the first attempt.