Audi fined €7,500 for releasing Slater with a fan in the sidepod
The stewards have fined Audi €7,500 for sending Freddie Slater out of the garage in first practice in Mexico City with a cooling fan still in the sidepod. They applied the same penalty Mercedes received in Australia.
A small fine for a visible mistake
The stewards have settled the case that overshadowed Freddie Slater's Formula 1 practice debut. Audi was fined €7,500 for releasing the 18-year-old Briton in an unsafe condition during first practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix, according to PlanetF1 and RacingNews365, which both cite the stewards' decision.
Slater was driving Gabriel Bortoleto's R26 for the opening session. He left the garage with a cooling fan still fitted in the right-hand sidepod, and the team called him back to the pits shortly afterwards.
What the stewards said
The fan never came off the car. The stewards nevertheless wrote that "there was the possibility it could have", which is why they treated the release as unsafe rather than as a harmless slip. They said they applied a penalty similar to the one handed to Mercedes at the Australian Grand Prix, where Kimi Antonelli's car left the pits with two fans attached, one of them fell off and was then hit by Lando Norris's McLaren. Mercedes was fined the same €7,500.
According to PlanetF1, an Audi representative told the stewards that he noticed the fan, checked with engineers and was advised it was safe to continue the lap. The team then told Slater to pit; the driver himself was unaware of the issue. RacingNews365 reports that the stewards took a dim view of the mistake, and the fine was reduced to its final amount on that basis.
The cost on track
The sporting damage was larger than the fine. RacingNews365 reports that the power unit overheated while the fan was fitted, which effectively ended Slater's session after half an hour without a push lap. Audi cooled the car enough for him to rejoin with a few minutes remaining, and he finished 21st, ahead only of Colton Herta's Cadillac. Our OpenF1 data shows 14 laps and a best time of 1:20.945, 2.817 s behind session-topper Charles Leclerc's 1:18.128.
What comes next
Slater is due to run again in first practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the second of the rookie outings Audi has to complete this season, per the reports. Before that, Audi's attention turns to qualifying in Mexico City, where Bortoleto is back in the car.
