Freddie Slater suffered practice misery for the second successive Friday after the Audi youngster ground to a halt just 15 minutes into the opening session ahead of the São Paulo Grand Prix.
A week ago, in the build-up to the race in Mexico City, the team's rising star, who finished second on his debut in F3 this season and will move up to F2 next year with the front-running Invicta team, endured a miserable outing.
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, was 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 the stewards to investigate the team after the session for his car being released in an unsafe condition.
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.
Slater, who had taken over Gabriel Bortoleto's car for the session, did finally return to the track with 11 minutes remaining, going on to eventually post a time that lifted him off the bottom of the standings.
A week at Interlagos, Slater, in for Nico Hulkenberg on this occasion, had completed just seven laps, with a best of one minute 14.966s on the hard tyres, when his car stopped on track, sparking a red flag.
Audi described it as "an issue" it would "investigate the problem fully as soon as the car is back in the garage".
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