Slater revels in ‘very special’ Budapest victory as he takes championship lead

Freddie Slater was made to work for his first victory in FIA Formula 3, holding off title rival Ugo Ugochukwu to the line in the Budapest Feature Race.

The TRIDENT driver started from second but took the lead once Tuukka Taponen pitted with a right rear puncture.

From then on, he had to manage Safety Car restarts and the close fight from Ugochukwu, before going on to win by 1.4s – claiming his first win in the Championship.

“It’s very special, very special,” said Slater on winning the race. “I think it was an incredible race, one of the most enjoyable tracks to do it at and I think on Friday we put ourselves in a really good position to give ourselves that opportunity, going into Sunday.

“I had a really clean race, obviously at the start was a bit touch and go with Tuukka, but I think it was more of a racing incident and it was always going to be like that.

“So I think it was an enjoyable race for me, managed the corners well and managed the right sectors, where to push and where not to push and I’m very happy with that one.”

This victory gives Slater the lead over Ugochukwu in the Drivers’ Championship by eight points going into the summer break. But the Briton is not exactly planning his title celebrations just yet.

“For sure it’s nice,” said Slater on leading the Standings. “But there's so many points up for grabs. Madrid is going to be crazy with over 60 points available in one weekend.

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“Obviously, it's a really nice way to go into the summer break but we've got some clear things we can work on to make our lives a little bit easier and I want to thank the team for doing an amazing job of pushing super hard, of improving the qualifying pace.

“I think now we need to work a little bit more on our race pace, but the team did an amazing job overnight to improve that.

“So it's a nice way to go into the summer break and that's a bit of reset, obviously a bit of time with the family and then get back to it in Monza.”

Slater and Ugochukwu have been battling for championships the entire year going back to their time in New Zealand – the American driver winning the title on that occasion.

With the top two now 47 points clear of the rest of the field, and the TRIDENT driver says fighting his Campos rival is something he has become used to over the years.

“It's been a good battle so far,” he said. “We obviously knew kind of who the title contenders were going to be, but also there's obviously some anomalies there that kind of showed more performance than probably people would have thought.

“But of course, you never really focus on one person. For me, it's just focusing on myself and maximising the opportunities that we get, and with this championship, it just swings around all the time.

“So you're never really focusing on one person, and of course, me and Ugo we've always been battling year by year, really, for all our lives and even from karting.

“We had an interesting start of the season in New Zealand. A few setbacks at the start, which definitely didn't help, but then we had a good battle towards the end to try and bring it back. But we fell a little bit short.

“But now we're here in FIA Formula 3 for my first year. Compared to a lot of second year drivers at the front, I think we're having a very positive season so far.”

Slater also found time to praise TRIDENT for the campaign so far. The Audi Development Driver has been on the podium seven times this season and has qualified on pole in twice in the last three rounds.

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“I think it's been really positive,” reflected Slater. “I think we've had a good kind of development through the year.

“Obviously coming in as a rookie, you're just learning about the car every single session, every single race, and obviously then now coming to a few tracks I know, I've been able to build on that momentum.

“Also driving the car with a bit more experience of what it needs to be driven. The team's done a mega job of giving me a car that probably suits a little bit more my style and adapting to what I need.”