British rookie involved in unusual pit error as Audi to face Mexico City GP stewards

Freddie Slater suffered an F1 debut to forget in first practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Slater, who finished second on his debut in F3 this season, will move up to F2 next season with the front-running Invicta team.

The 18-year-old, who was the first driver to be brought into Audi's driver development programme following the team's entry into F1 this season, is seen as a rising star.

But Slater endured a miserable first practice outing at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, driving in place of Gabriel Bortoleto,  initially after being sent out on track at one stage with a cooling fan still inside the right-hand sidepod of his car.

Slater was naturally recalled to the pits by Audi to have the fan removed, leading to the stewards to investigate the team after the session for his car being released in an unsafe condition.

On his next lap, Slater was told to return to the pits again, bringing what at the time appeared to be an unfortunately early end to his season as he was told to turn off the engine after pulling into his grid box.

It left Slater with just six laps to his name at that stage, and without a time on the board at the bottom of the timing sheet.

But with just under 11 minutes remaining, whatever was ailing the Audi was fixed, allowing Slater to head back out on track for another opportunity.

On his ninth lap, Slater finally posted a time, 4.3s behind Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. On his final push lap, he improved to 1:20.945s, 2.817s behind Leclerc, to lift himself off the foot of the times.

Slater will be hoping for an improvement next weekend when he replaces Nick Hulkenberg in FP1 ahead of the São Paulo GP.