Pierre Gasly headlined a truncated third practice for the Dutch Grand Prix, following a lengthy red-flag period for Logan Sargeant’s heavy crash on the exit of Turn 3.
In wet conditions following the emergence of overnight rain, Sargeant had put his Williams into the wall after taking too much kerb on the exit of Turn 3, the banked Hugenholtz corner, and ended up touching the grass.
This pitched his Williams into the opposite barrier and inflicted heavy damage onto his car – subsequently, a fire burst out at the rear as a fuel line was presumably severed in the wreckage.
Sargeant was able to extricate himself from the car swiftly, although the nature of the impact had caused heavy damage to the Armco barrier and left a line of residue along the track.
This prompted a 44-minute pause in proceedings to repair the barrier, as the early running had ended with Fernando Alonso on top of the timing boards having found 0.4 seconds over Oscar Piastri’s earlier benchmark.
Race control tentatively suggested that running could resume with five minutes to spare, but this was delayed as the barrier was not yet ready; instead, there would be just two minutes of running at the close of the session.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524
Photo by: Erik Junius
Fernando Alonso had been on top of the charts ahead of the final volley of laps, and the condensed running available prompted a final dash for a lap on the intermediate tyre. Although Kevin Magnussen had originally vaulted to the top, Gasly took the quickest lap at the chequered flag.
The Dane’s time was good enough for second, as Valtteri Bottas and Lando Norris completed the top four – ahead of Alonso’s pre-stoppage time.
Max Verstappen was placed under investigation for his jockeying on the exit of the pitlane, where he passed Piastri down the inside of the pit exit and also barged past George – but put a wheel over the white line on the pit exit.
Neither Yuki Tsunoda nor Sergio Perez got a lap in at the end of the session, having missed the chequered flag to start their final runs.
