Alpine’s Pierre Gasly set the pace in the third and final practice session for the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix, but Logan Sargeant interrupted any substantial running with a heavy crash amid wet conditions at the seaside Zandvoort circuit.
Drivers have had to contend with a mixed bag of weather throughout the weekend, with Friday a blustery affair.
FP1 went from wet to dry, with the sun popping out for the full duration of FP2 amid a more-than-stiff breeze.
McLaren and Mercedes looked like top dogs across Friday’s running, but the formbook can always change in the wet.
With qualifying supposedly set to be dry for Saturday afternoon, in contrast to the wet conditions at the start of FP3.
After a sighting lap on full wet tyres, Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg returned to the pits to report Zandvoort was ready for intermediate tyres with the rain subsiding.
But the German triggered a yellow flag in Sector 3 not long after switching compounds.
On Friday, Hulkenberg suffered a surprise rear lock-up under braking that sent him into the Turn 1 barrier and the same anomaly occurred to him again, this time at Turn 11.
Luckily for the Haas driver, he was able to reverse out of the barriers and continue back to the pits, albeit with a ruined front wing.
If things were bad for Hulkenberg, they were way worse for Williams’ Sargeant who brought out the red flag with 45 minutes of the session left to run.
The American’s car was pictured stricken between Turns 4 and 5, pointing the wrong way, both wings missing and with fire pouring out the back of the car, giving Williams a tough ask to repair the practically written-off FW46 in time for qualifying.
Replays showed Sargeant dipping two wheels onto the inside grass coming out of Turn 3, a costly lapse in judgement that resulted in a violent spin and heavy damage.
Thankfully the American driver was able to climb out of his car under his own power, unscathed and retreating away from the scene of the incident in good time.
Sargeant’s incident caused a heavy delay to the proceedings as the marshalls sought to remove the stricken car from the circuit with half the drivers yet to set a time.
It was not just the removal of Sargeant’s car that was an issue, but resulting debris from the crash also needed to be swept away and the barriers at Turn 4 needed extensive repairs.
As the minutes counted down, race control reported the session was to resume at 12:25 local time which would leave just five minutes of running for the drivers to return to the circuit.
That was then pushed back to 12:27 with any more running looking increasingly unlikely.
But no, the marshalls did a fine job of getting Zandvoort ready for green flag running and with just two minutes of the session remaining, the F1 field exited pit-lane at 12:28 local time.
Max Verstappen was in a hurry, overtaking Oscar Piastri in the pit-lane exit and incurring a black and white flag warning for the act.
With mere seconds on the clock, it looked like a race simulation as a gaggle of drivers fought for track positions to start a final lap with several failing to make the chequered flag.
The one-lap shootout saw Gasly’s 1:20.311s effort top the leaderboard, 0.139s ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.
Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas wound up with the third fastest time, with the pecking order well and truly jumbled up thanks to the tumultuous session.
Fourth went to McLaren’s Lando Norris with Fernando Alonso, who led the session ahead of the stoppage, finishing fifth fastest.
Esteban Ocon made it two Alpines inside the top-10 with Piastri, Lance Stroll, Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz rounding out the top half of the order.
Zhou Guanyu was the 11th-quickest and Sargeant held onto 12th in the leaderboard thanks to a 1:28.287s time set before his crash.
That left some big names in the bottom half of the order amid the usual midfield runners.
Mercedes’ George Russell was 13th fastest ahead of Williams’ Alex Albon and Lewis Hamilton.
That left Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in 16th with Verstappen’s exploits failing to reap any reward in 17th.
RB’s Daniel Ricciardo was the last driver to post a time with Yuki Tsunoda and Sergio Perez failing to get on the leaderboard.
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