Scary F1 scenes as driver escapes fiery crash in double Williams blow

American driver Logan Sargeant emerged unscathed, but his Williams was left in a sorry state due to a fiery crash at the Dutch GP.

Sargeant was involved in a huge crash.

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.

Fifteen minutes into the session, Sargeant briefly drove over grass on Zandvoort’s Turn 3 in slippery conditions.

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That prompted a scary spin off the track as his car crashed into the barriers.

“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.”

Logan Sargeant’s Williams was on fire after crashing. Picture: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

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 session was immediately red-flagged. Aussie Oscar Piastri was just behind Sargeant, but managed to avoid the carnage.

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

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

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

Sargeant quickly got out of the burning vehicle. Picture: Mario Renzi – Formula 1 via 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.”

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

Originally published as Scary F1 scenes as driver escapes fiery crash in double Williams blow