Freddie Slater admitted his “gamble” to try to regain the lead at the Macau Grand Prix backfired, as he crashed out in the closing stages of the race.
The Formula Regional European champion dominated Saturday’s qualifying race, securing pole position for the GP. However, he lost out at the start to Mari Boya. The Prema driver quickly reclaimed the lead shortly after a safety car restart and pulled over three seconds clear of the rest of the field. Another caution, though, reset the race.
On the resumption, Boya jumped ahead approaching Lisboa corner. In an effort to chase Boya down and negate a deficit in the first sector, Slater pushed hard but went wide out of the final R Bend corner. This mistake caused him to crash into the barriers.
“It’s Macau, at the end of the day it’s a gamble,” Slater told Autosport. “You saw on the last lap the guy in third managed to win the race just because of a bit of luck, a bit of a slipstream and it all paid off.”
Slater explained his approach: “We knew we were down in sector one, so I was pushing very hard in that sector to try and make up for it and to try to keep us in the game and give myself an opportunity to be back in the lead.”
He continued: “It ended up being a small snap and then you get in the dust, and with the track being so dirty, I was in the dust and that was it.”
Despite the disappointing conclusion to his Macau weekend—which followed a crash out of the race last year while fighting for a podium—Slater remained positive about his performance.
“We drove away yesterday and we were driving away again then today,” he said. “I would’ve loved to have won the race, don’t get me wrong, but the pace we’ve had all weekend has been unstoppable and it’s been a really good weekend with the team and it’s been enjoyable.”
Prema Racing team boss Rene Rosin described the race as displaying the “good and the bad of Macau.” He praised Slater’s effort but noted the challenging nature of the Guia circuit ultimately caught up with him.
“He took the lead, he did everything he had to do,” Rosin told Autosport. “He tried to stay in the slipstream of Boya and I think he could’ve waited maybe a bit more, but that’s Macau, it’s all in and we will try to get faster, smarter next year.”
Rosin added, “I cannot say anything bad to him, it is just Macau.”
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**Related:**
[Macau GP: Theo Nael wins thriller as Freddie Slater crashes out](#)
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/freddie-slater-unstoppable-macau-gamble-111215857.html
