Texts from George, On Track with W16, and Prepping for F1 2026 – Fred’s Final 2025 Diary!

We’ll start with the last week, in Abu Dhabi. It was so cool to be with the team trackside for the season finale and of course get a second-row seat at the end-of-season team photo.

It wasn’t quite the end of the season for us drivers, though, and I was straight into the car on Tuesday post-season for the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi. In addition to my two FP1s, these days are my favourite of the season.

Getting to take all my sim experience to the track is the best part of my role. It’s an incredible feeling to get behind the wheel of W16. Connecting the virtual and real world can help us learn a lot.

I’ve always said you never know as a driver when you might be called upon to jump into a race seat, and these tests allow me to stay sharp physically and mentally for that.

Being at the track gives me a good insight into how the drivers work with their engineers, and I can see first-hand some of the issues that we can look to improve, rather than getting this from back in Brackley, which can be quite isolating.

I am trying to be the bridge between the racetrack and the sim. George will often message me suggesting a change or to try something that could help him out, and of course I am happy to do that.

Sometimes though, he lets me borrow his car for an hour or two, and that’s exactly what happened in Mexico in October.

It was great to get back behind the wheel of W16, and it brought back special memories of 2023, when I made my FP1 rookie session debut at the track.

It was cool to feel the steps I’ve made since then, both in my driving and the way I approached the session with the engineers, it was a good way of seeing my progress, and I have only had positive chats with the team about it since.

There is always a lot of responsibility on that session, you want to go as fast as possible, but it’s crucial you help the team gather long-run plan data too.

I had no idea until I got back to the pits that George had been up in the grandstands watching me! The video after was really funny.

A few weeks later in Las Vegas, me and Valtteri were wrapped up in sleeping bags filming content about night races, not something I had on my 2025 bingo card, either!

It’s fun to see the team show the lighter side of themselves in these moments, especially because we are all working so hard for 2026.

The role I’ve had this year, working in the sim on next year’s car, has been intense, but every single meeting I have been in has been attended by engineers full of motivation.

We are exploring a new car, and challenges we have never come across before, but overcoming them has been fun.

I’m a racing driver, talking about feelings and sensations, they are engineers talking in numbers – trying to meet in the middle is always the most interesting part of our relationship!

We are doing everything we can to make sure we guide next year’s car in the best possible direction.

Speaking of direction, I have been heading into plenty of different ones lately, but that again is the life of a racing driver. It’s been a busy schedule, travelling back and forth between Grands Prix, Brackley, and the US for my endurance racing programme in IMSA.

It takes a toll on the body and mind to be away so much and have to constantly adjust your focus, but I know I’m doing something that will help me achieve my goal.

I fell in love with endurance racing this year, too. Coming from single-seaters, it’s not easy to adjust to having team-mates, but when we won at Indianapolis and then followed it up with victory at Road Atlanta you could see how much it meant to the whole group.

We’d gone from struggling to winning and we’d all worked so hard together to make that happen.

At Petit Le Mans [at Road Atlanta] I was the quickest driver in the field for both fastest lap and average lap time. I was pleased with my own performance, and I know I couldn’t have done that without the support behind me. This is a team sport with so many moving parts. I’ll be heading home to Denmark for Christmas this year, to spend time with some family and friends, but not before a couple of final 2026 sim sessions to close out the year – oh, and a triathlon with my girlfriend in Qatar.

Wishing you all happy holidays and a great new year. Chat soon!

Fred.