Audi Gives Slater Two F1 Practice Runs — Cadillac Puts Herta in Pérez's Car
GOATIFYTwo of Formula 1's newest manufacturers are handing their Friday practice programmes to drivers who are trying to earn a place on the grid. Audi has confirmed that 18-year-old Freddie Slater will make his F1 practice debut in Mexico City next week, then return to the R26 in São Paulo. Cadillac, meanwhile, is putting American prospect Colton Herta in Sergio Pérez's car at this weekend's United States Grand Prix in Austin.
Neither appearance is a race-seat announcement. The immediate job is to complete useful laps, deliver engineering feedback and satisfy rookie-driver practice obligations without compromising the regular drivers' weekends. Yet the timing matters: Slater is moving from a standout Formula 3 rookie campaign toward Formula 2, while Herta is trying to turn an established American racing career into an eventual F1 opportunity.
There is a wider story behind these sessions. For Audi and Cadillac, 2026 is not simply about developing machinery. It is about building a talent pipeline and learning which drivers can contribute to a modern F1 operation under real grand prix pressure.
Audi is giving Slater two meaningful tests, not a shortcut to a race seat
Audi's announcement gives Slater two chances to experience the rhythm of a Formula 1 weekend before he has even started his Formula 2 career. He will drive in first practice at the Mexican Grand Prix and again in Brazil, taking one session from each of Audi's full-time racers, Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto. The team has used Alpine junior Paul Aron for earlier rookie sessions, leaving these two outings to complete its remaining young-driver obligations.
That distinction is important. A practice seat does not imply that Audi is considering an immediate replacement for either race driver. The German manufacturer's first F1 season is still a development project, and an FP1 session is a tightly scheduled working exercise. Slater must get comfortable with the cockpit and steering-wheel procedures, adapt to the hybrid power delivery and braking demands, and then execute the programme the engineers actually need. A spectacular single lap would be less useful than clean, repeatable runs accompanied by precise feedback.
The R26 also presents a different challenge from the junior machinery Slater knows. Formula 1's 2026 generation uses active aerodynamic systems and a much greater electrical contribution to propulsion. Drivers must manage deployment and recovery alongside the usual tyre preparation, traffic and circuit evolution. Audi has been learning those systems throughout its first season as a works team, so every minute of representative track data matters.
Mexico City and Interlagos make a useful two-part classroom. The Mexican venue's altitude places distinctive demands on cooling and aerodynamic performance, while São Paulo's elevation changes and mixed-speed corners ask different questions of car balance. Even if Slater receives a conservative programme, experiencing two tracks and two engineering briefings should teach him far more than a single promotional run.
Audi racing director Allan McNish has framed the sessions as another step in Slater's education ahead of F2. The sensible benchmark is therefore not whether the teenager beats the regular drivers' lap times, which are shaped by fuel loads and run plans. It is whether he can follow instructions, learn rapidly between runs and leave the team with usable information. That is the kind of evidence an F1 academy needs before deciding what comes next.
His Formula 3 season explains why Audi chose this moment
Slater is not being rewarded for one promising weekend. He has assembled a junior résumé that makes the step into an F1 car unusually timely. The British driver won titles in Italian Formula 4 and Formula Regional before finishing runner-up to McLaren-backed Ugo Ugochukwu in his first Formula 3 season. He was also the highest-placed rookie in that championship, an important detail when evaluating how quickly a driver adjusts to a new level.
The runner-up finish was not painless. Slater entered the final F3 round with a 15-point advantage over Ugochukwu but lost the championship. That outcome should not be erased by the excitement of an F1 practice debut. It offers a useful reminder that a season can contain both exceptional pace and moments when execution or circumstances leave a title out of reach. Teams looking for future grand prix drivers care about how a prospect processes that disappointment as much as they care about outright speed.
His next full-time assignment is Formula 2 with Invicta in 2027. That is the crucial competitive test. F2 adds longer races, more strategic variation, tougher tyre management and an intense field of drivers who are already close to the F1 threshold. Slater's two Audi outings will not replace that education, but they can help him understand what the top category demands before he begins it.
There is a useful precedent in the path from Trident's F3 programme to F2: Gabriel Bortoleto, Leonardo Fornaroli and Rafael Câmara have all followed that progression. Their careers are not templates that guarantee Slater the same outcome, and F1 opportunities depend on contracts and team needs as well as results. The comparison simply shows why Audi wants to connect its academy driver with grand prix operations early rather than waiting until his junior career is complete.
The most revealing part of the Mexico and Brazil weekends may happen away from television cameras. Preparation meetings, simulator correlation, debriefs and the ability to translate sensations into engineering language are all essential parts of modern F1 work. If Slater can absorb those habits now, the benefit may be visible next year in F2 long before it produces another F1 appearance.
Herta's Austin run is a different audition for Cadillac
Across the paddock, Cadillac's choice carries a different kind of symbolism. Colton Herta will take over Sergio Pérez's MAC-26 for the opening practice session at the Circuit of the Americas on Friday, October 23. The American has already driven three FP1 sessions this year, at Barcelona, Budapest and Monza, although a suspected hydraulic issue curtailed his Monza running. Austin gives him another opportunity to complete the work without a technical interruption.
COTA is also personal territory. Herta scored his first IndyCar victory there in 2019, so he knows the layout and the atmosphere even though the demands of a current Formula 1 car are different. That experience can reduce the time spent learning the circuit, potentially freeing more of the session for the team's technical programme. It does not eliminate the challenge of adapting to F1 braking, energy management or the specific behaviour of Cadillac's car.
Cadillac intends to evaluate modest floor and cooling changes during the weekend. The first sector's fast direction changes, the circuit's bumps and the slower corners near the end of the lap create a broad set of questions for engineers. A reserve driver who can follow a disciplined run plan and provide clear feedback is useful precisely because the team is still establishing its performance baseline in its debut season. For Pérez, the quality of that information can shape the setup decisions made after he gets the car back.
Herta's route toward an F1 race seat is also less straightforward than Slater's. He arrived with a substantial IndyCar résumé, but he is now learning the European single-seater ladder from Formula 2, where he sits 19th in the standings at this point of the season. He has spoken about aiming for an F1 opportunity by 2028. The ambition is clear; the competitive and contractual steps between an FP1 appearance and a full-time seat remain significant.
That makes Friday's success criteria practical rather than theatrical. A clean session, meaningful laps on the planned setup and useful comments on the car's balance would strengthen Herta's case as a dependable development asset. A headline lap achieved on a different programme from the regular drivers would say much less. Cadillac needs progress from its car and from its prospective drivers, and Austin offers a rare chance to measure both in front of a home crowd.
The two programmes therefore should not be treated as a head-to-head contest. Slater is an 18-year-old climbing through the conventional junior categories; Herta is an experienced winner rebuilding his path through F2. Audi is investing in long-term potential, while Cadillac is testing how an American prospect can contribute immediately to its engineering effort. Both approaches can make sense without promising either driver a place on the 2027 grid.
For the immediate race weekends, the regular drivers and teams remain the priority. Slater will have to hand back a healthy Audi in Mexico and Brazil, while Herta must return Pérez's Cadillac after a productive Austin session. The lap-time headlines may be tempting, but the most valuable results will be consistency, adaptation and technical feedback.
Beyond that, these outings offer a glimpse of how two new F1 manufacturers are shaping their future. Audi has a rising teenager about to enter F2; Cadillac has an established American racer trying to earn his next opportunity. Their Friday work will not settle either career, but it can make the next decision better informed.
