The German manufacturer picked up a €7,500 penalty for sending Freddie Slater’s car onto the track with a cooling fan still clipped to the sidepod in FP1, and a separate €5,000 fine later in the day for hiding Gabriel Bortoleto’s floor under a sheet during a garage move in FP2.

Each infringement was minor on its own. Together they fit a pattern Audi can do without as it closes out its first season as a works entry.

An 18-year-old on debut, a fan left on

Slater, an 18-year-old British rookie running an FP1 outing as part of the team’s young-driver programme, was released onto the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez with the cooling fan still attached to the right-hand sidepod. The error was spotted on track, and Slater was called back to the garage before the fan could detach itself.

The stewards’ document recorded the team’s own account: “The team representative explained that on noticing that the cooling fan was still attached, he checked with his engineers to ascertain if it was safe to continue the lap and was advised by them that it was.”

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That did not spare Audi the fine. The stewards leaned directly on an identical incident earlier in the year, when Mercedes was fined the same €7,500 at the Australian Grand Prix after a cooling fan came off Kimi Antonelli’s car and struck Lando Norris’s McLaren.

“Although the fan did not fall off the car (as was the case of a car in Australia this year) there was the possibility it could have,” the stewards wrote.

Covered floor, covered car

The second fine came later in the day and was procedural rather than mechanical. During FP2, Audi moved the floor of Bortoleto’s Car 5 between its two garages, which are separated by another team’s bay, with the component hidden under a large sheet. A second sheet was also used to block the view of the car while mechanics worked beneath it.

Both actions breach Article B3.3.1 of the sporting regulations, which forbids obscuring parts and work on cars from the public and from rival teams in the pit lane.

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The stewards accepted that Audi had a practical reason for covering the floor during the walk through the pit lane but ruled the explanation irrelevant to the article itself.

“While the Stewards acknowledge the particular circumstances explained by the Competitor, these do not constitute an exception to the requirements of Article B3.3.1,” the ruling read.

A debut season of small, visible errors

The two fines land in the closing stretch of Audi’s first full campaign under the manufacturer’s own name, with Mattia Binotto running the team as CEO and team principal after Jonathan Wheatley’s departure earlier in the year. The project sits in the lower half of the constructors’ standings, and the Mexican Friday was the kind of day the garage will want to leave in Mexico City.

The on-track consequences were just as awkward for Slater himself. His running was cut short by the fan incident, and the overheating that followed meant he set his timed laps only in the dying minutes of FP1, finishing the session 21st.

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Audi has already confirmed Slater will get another FP1 outing at next week’s Brazilian Grand Prix, part of the rookie mileage every team must give young drivers during the season.

The Mexican Grand Prix is on Sunday 1 November at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

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