Latifi would be “surprised” to avoid gearbox penalty after 38G shunt

The Canadian was aiming to reach Q3 for only the second time this season when he dipped a wheel onto the grass and spun off into the Turn 8 barriers, an incident which caused a red flag.

Latifi was unhurt in the hard impact which caused heavy damage to the rear of his Williams car. In a post on social media on Saturday evening, Latifi revealed the crash had registered at 38G.

“I will be surprised if we don’t take a gearbox penalty with the impact I had,” he said. “Apologies to the team, as I know I left them a lot of work tonight.”

The margins are fine at Zandvoort, as both George Russell and Nicholas Latifi found out in qualifying #DutchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/R9gjEpdPbn

— Formula 1 (@F1) September 4, 2021

Explaining his accident, Latifi added: “Unfortunately, my only new set was the first red flag in Q2, so that kind of wasted that set.

“Surprisingly at the end, I went out on another used set of tyres. I was improving my lap time compared to what I did in Q1, which was on Q3 cut-off.

“People would have probably improved, but it would have been a decent lap, so I said, ‘well nothing to lose, might lose the tyres at the end, but just go for it, otherwise I’ll still be P15 anyway’.

“I misjudged the turn in point and clipped the grass.”

Latifi’s crash came just minutes after the session had restarted following a red flag when his teammate George Russell slid off at the final corner while attempting to improve on his Q2 time.

The Briton, who ended qualifying 11th, conceded he “pushed too hard” when his tyres were over the limit.

“We all want circuits that punish you and it certainly did,” Russell explained.

“I pushed too hard. I knew that lap would have been just good enough to promote me into the top 10 at that point in time.

"My tyres were over the limit, and I knew I had to attack the last corner to keep that speed up onto the straight – but ultimately I went too far.”