Formula 1 medical car driver Alan van der Mꦓerwe sai🐲d he had “never seen that much fire” after playing a pivotal role in helping Romain Grosjean to escape his horrific opening lap crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Grosjean crashed heavily at Turn 3 on the first lap of Sunday’s Grand Prix after a clash with AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat, with his Haas car getting speared into th🔯e barriers at high speed.

The impact was so forceful that 🎶it tore Grosjean’s car in half, before his Haas dramatically burst into flames.

Medical car dri🌠ver van der Merwe and Dr Ian Roberts were among the first on the scene and helped assist Grosjean from his burning wreckage.

After clambering out of his car, Grosjean had a checkover before being sent to hospital as a precaution with possible broken ribs anꦦd having sustained burns to his hands♑ and ankles.

“I’ve never seen that much firౠe, in 12 years I’ve not se♊en that much fire and an impact like that,” van der Merwe said after returning to the pitlane following the incident.

“We just took a little while to process what was going on. I’m sure it was only a second or so but it felt like ages. Then Romain just started to actually get out of the car itself, which is pretty amazing af🅠ter an accident like that🌱.”

Asked if he was relieved to see that Grosjean was OK,🌜 he replied: "Not yet. Some relief when we got back here and he was OK. Very impressive.

“It just shows all the systems that we’ve developed, everything worked hand in hand – the Halo, the barriers, the seatbelts, everything worked how it should. Without just one of those th♊ings it could have been a very different outcome.”

Haaღs team principal Guenther Steiner was seen thanking van der Merwe and the medical crew who were quick to arrive to the scene and worked to put out some of the fire while Grosjea💜n escaped.

"When you see what is going on out there, if you see the barrier, where it 🐷is torn down, it is unbelievable," Steiner said.

"I think we ꦐwere lucky by being unlucky. I prefer that luck to any racing luck. He seems to doing good. Hopefully there is nothing coming, but he got ♛away with it I think.”

Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton took to social media duri💃ng the lengthy delay to say that he was thankful to learn that G🤪rosjean was safe.

“The risk we take is no joke ൩for those of our out there that forget that we put our life on the line for this sport and for what we love to do," Hamilton said.

"This is a reminder to us all. Thankful to the FIA for the massive s🌠trides we've taken for Romain to walk away from 🐟that safely."