Thursday, September 19, 2024

Sargeant crashes heavily in final practice – Dutch GP qualifying from 13:45 BST

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High-speed crash for Sargeant disrupts FP3published at 11:43 British Summer Time

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent at Zandvoort

Logan Sargeant's car is recovered after a crashImage source, Getty Images

A high-speed crash for
Williams driver Logan Sargeant reduced final practice at the Dutch Grand Prix
to just a handful of laps.

The American, who has
lost his seat at Williams for next season and is not expected to continue in
Formula 1, lost control at the flat-out Turn Four after putting a wheel on the
grass, which was wet from hours of rain.

That sent Sergeant
spinning into the barriers, destroying his car, which caught fire. Sargeant was
winded but uninjured.

Williams have not yet
said whether the car can be repaired in time for qualifying, but the extent of
damage makes this unlikely.

The accident happened
after just 14 minutes of a session that started on a wet track, by which time
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was fastest at the time on intermediate tyres,
0.389 seconds quicker than McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

The session restarted
with just two minutes to go. Pierre Gasly’s Alpine ended up fastest from
Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas and McLaren’s Lando Norris vaulted ahead of Alonso’s
time after a scrabble for track position.

Max Verstappen earned
himself a black-and-white flag after crossing the pit lane exit line in his
eagerness to gain places.

The Red Bull driver had
dived down Piastri’s inside exiting the pits and then made his transgression by
going around the outside of George Russell’s Mercedes joining the track on the
exit after Turn One.

Further attempts to gain
position on track were thwarted when Lewis Hamilton prevented Verstappen from
passing.

Qualifying starts at
15:00 local time (14:00 UK).

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