Pierre Gasly topped a severely curtailed wet final practice session at the Dutch Grand Prix after a big Logan Sargeant crash triggered a red flag that absorbed most of the hour.
Sargeant was on his fourth lap on intermediate tires on the drying but treacherously slippery circuit when he lost control of his car exiting the banked left-handed Hugenholtz corner.
The American got too happy on the power too early, putting his foot down with his right-hand tires still on the grass. It sent him spinning across the track and into a big collision with the steel barrier on the outside of the circuit.
The Williams wreckage came to rest in the middle of the track – missing most of its bodywork and its rear-right tire having freed itself – where it dramatically caught fire.
Sargeant, thankfully unhurt, clambered from his car and escaped to safety while marshals tended to the smoldering heap.
Logan Sargeant’s FP3 ended in dramatic fashion 💥#F1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/KHAWj5K4Fh
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 24, 2024
Williams expects at least a new chassis will be required if Sargeant is to take part in qualifying later today.
Red flags were deployed with just over 45 minutes on the clock. It took 15 minutes just to get what was left of Sargeant’s car back to pit lane, and barrier repairs soaked up almost the rest of the session.
Race control got final practice back underway with just two minutes on the clock, prompting a frantic rush for pit exit so that drivers could get even a rudimentary feel for conditions in which qualifying could take place later today.
The entire field minus Sargeant and Fernando Alonso piled onto the track, but not everyone was able to set a time in the jockeying for position that followed.
Combined with the conditions, it delivered a classification sheet unrepresentative of the competitive order.
Gasly set the benchmark at 1m 20.311s, beating Kevin Magnussen to the position by 0.139s.
Valtteri Bottas followed ahead of Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Oscar Piastri and Lance Stroll down to eighth.
Nico Hulkenberg was ninth after taking repairs for an unusual crash in the opening 15 minutes. The German speared off the road at Turn 11 on his first lap on intermediates, his tires too happy to lock up on the application of the brakes.
“It’s again the same as yesterday, I touched the brake and I lock up,” Hulkenberg said, recalling his FP2 crash triggered by a locked rear axle that sent him into the barriers.
Carlos Sainz, having missed most of FP2 with a gearbox issue, completed just six laps on his way to 10th, leaving him down on mileage ahead of qualifying.
Zhou Guanyu was 11th ahead of the crashed Sargeant, George Russell, Alex Albon, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo down to 18th.
Verstappen was shown a black-and-white flag in the final minutes of the session for crossing the white line on pit exit as he attempted to pass cars for position as the clock ticked down.
Neither Yuki Tsunoda nor Sergio Perez set a lap time at the bottom of the classification.
