'Completely lost it': Scary F1 scenes as driver escapes fiery crash in ...

American F1 driver Logan Sargeant has emerged unscathed, but his Williams FW46 was left in a sorry state due to a fiery crash that sparked red flags in Free Practice 3 for the Dutch Grand Prix.

The fiery crash and driving rain marred the final practice, with many top contenders getting little track time before qualifying later in the day.

Pierre Gasly from Alpine clocked the fastest lap but teams will have learned little from the session which was reduced to 16 minutes after a crash by US driver Sargeant.

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Sargeant, 15 minutes into the session, nearly totally destroyed his Williams in a high-speed crash after briefly driving over grass on Zandvoort’s Turn 3 in slippery conditions.

Sargeant skidded on wet grass coming round a corner, spun violently, and careered side-on into the fence, the rear of his car quickly bursting into flames.

“He’s completely lost it … That is a big, big crash,” F1 commentator David Croft said.

Fellow commentator Anthony Davidson added: “He’s just eager to get his foot down on the exit of Turn 3 … That’s what it takes, you put your wheel on the grass and you lose an awful lot of grip. That’s a hard hit into the Armco barriers.”

Sargeant declared “I’m OK” over team radio, but had to promptly exit the cockpit as the rear of his car had caught fire. He later visited the medical centre, but was cleared of injury.

The car of Logan Sargeant of United States and Williams is seen on fire after crashing. Picture: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images

The session was immediately red-flagged as officials removed the smouldering husk.. Aussie Oscar Piastri was just behind Sargeant, but avoided the carnage.

By the time the debris had been cleared and safety fences repaired, there were only two minutes remaining in the hour-long practice session.

It comes after Sargeant crashed in qualifying at the same GP last year.

It’s also a painful blow for Williams, given that the car was sporting a host of upgraded parts.

“There’s no good time,” Williams Team Principal James Vowles said minutes after the crash.

Logan Sargeant of United States and Williams climbs out of his car after crashing. Picture: Mario Renzi – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images

“There’s hundreds of hours spent on this update kit and it looks like it’s working well, but there’s few of them in the world. The worst time is when you’ve introduced it with small amounts of bits – and you put it into the wall of a circuit.

“The difficulty is it’s FP3, so qualifying is going to be upon us pretty quickly. You saw from the images, it’s in a pretty bad state.

“It looks pretty serious. It could result in a chassis change.”

Sargeant, due to the tight turnaround, looks unlikely to take part in qualifying, due to the extensive damage and fire impact.