Sainz feels he "deserved" to crash in FP3 for Dutch GP

Carlos Sainz says that he "deserved" to crash in final practice for Formula 1's Dutch Grand Prix after making a mistake and running just 20 centimetres off the normal line.

Sainz's Ferrari was badly damaged when he spun off at Turn 3, the banked corner early in the lap.

A delay in getting in back to the pits did not help the mechanics with the repair job prior to qualifying.

The gearbox didn't have to be changed, so no penalty resulted.

After joining Q1 late, Sainz eventually qualified sixth, behind teammate Charles Leclerc.

"At the beginning I didn't know what had happened," said Sainz.

"Then I had a bit of an analysis, a bit of a cool-down in my head, and after what I've seen in quali, it's very clear now that centimetres off line there's clearly less grip than online there's a bit of sand.

"And I missed the apex by maybe 20cms in that lap, and I and you can see maybe that I pull up a bit of dust, and I think that is enough to create an accident at this circuit."

Sainz stressed that the accident and those suffered in qualifying by George Russell and Nicholas Latifi showed that Zandvoort extracts a heavy toll on errors.

"In terms of challenges, away from Monaco and Baku, I think this is biggest challenge of the season for the driver. I loved it. Even they accident I felt like I deserved to crash, to be 20cms off line, because this is how a circuit should be.

"And the prices that we all paid when we were doing mistakes out there is how F1 should be, and how we want the circuits of the future to be or not in the direction that they went 10 years ago, that has been unfortunate."

Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21 crashes

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Sainz admitted that until he was able to drive the repaired car out of the pitlane in Q1 he didn't know if it would be ready in time.

"It was in doubt until I pulled out of the pits," he said.

"Normally when you're in that kind of situation your mind tends to go into a bit of a negative state, because you've just crashed, you've just cost the team a massive repair to do, and you're negative, you think you're not going to make it.

"And suddenly the mechanics makes things impossible possible, and you're out, and yes it's a high pressure high tension moment for everyone and you kind of need to refocus, you need to make sure you don't put it in the wall again, and then do the qualifying. And it's it's a tricky one."