Heavy Sargeant crash triggers long red flag in final practice

A mistake from the Williams driver saw him spear into the barrier exiting Hugenholtz after just 15 minutes.

The American’s car sustained heavy damage, as did the barrier, which took an extended period to repair and effectively marked the end of the session.

Officially the chance of rain for the final practice hour was 60 percent according to the FIA timing screens.

In reality, it was 100 percent as rain fell as the session began, though nobody headed out when the pit lane was opened.

The conditions were expected to remain throughout the day.

With a limited number of intermediate tyres, teams were reluctant to do any more than essential running – both to save the tyres and avoid taking unnecessary risk on the unforgiving circuit.

Those who did head out early used the full wet tyres to protect their bank of intermediates.

One of those was Nico Hulkenberg, though he’d swapped to inters after the opening few minutes and quickly deposited the Haas in the barrier.

It left him with a broken front wing at Turn 12 though he was able to limp the wounded machine to the garage.

The German battled braking issues on Friday, the car again locking its wheels as he touched the brake pedal to skate him into the run-off and then into the tec pro barrier.

Soon after, there was a red flag when Sargeant crashed heavily on the run out of Hugenholtz.

The impact tore the front and rear wings from the Williams, and the right-rear wheel.

It was an unusual place to have an incident, the American leaping clear of the machine as it caught fire.

The crash was driver error, Sargeant running over the end of wet exit kerb at Hugenholtz and onto the grass, which fired him across the road and into the barrier on drivers’ left.

Damage to the fence triggered a delay that effectively saw the session conclude.

The session did officially restart with two minutes remaining, enough time for the field to get out on track, but it was not especially meaningful and designed to enable them to perform a practice start.

When the flag fell, Pierre Gasly was fastest with a 1:20.311s though times were utterly meaningless given the conditions and the way the session played out.