Sainz crashed heavily as he approached🃏 Turn 3 in final practice at Zandvoort.

Remarkably, Ferrari managed to🍨 repair his car𝄹 in time for qualifying, where he qualified sixth, just behind teammate Charles Leclerc.

Sainz applauded the design of the Zandvoort circuit, saying it’s right that drivers are push🅘ed for mistakes with mo꧂dern-day circuits often being more forgiving due to the vast run-off areas.

“But in t𝓀erms of challenges, I think this is aw🐲ay from Monaco and Baku, I think the biggest challenge of the season for the driver,” Sainz said after qualifying.

“I loved it, I loved every single... even the accident, I felt lik🐼e I deserved to crash, just to be 20cm offline, because this is how a circuit should be, and the prices that we all paid when we were doing mistakes out there is how Formula 1 should be and how we want the circuits of the future to be, and not the direction they went in 10 years ago, t🌟hat it's been unfortunate.”

Explaining his shunt in more det꧃ail, he explained: “Yeah, it happened very quickly. At the beginning I didn't know what had happened, then I had a bit of an analysis, I bit of a cooldown in my head, and after what I've ♈seen in qualy it's very clear.

“Centimetres off-line there's clearly less grip than on-line, there's a bit of sand, and I missed the apex by maybe 20cm in that lap, and I caught up, you can see maybe that I pul❀led up a bit of dust and I think that is enough to crea꧒te an accident at this circuit.

“And it's what makes it so challenging, it's what makes it so incredible as a driver, so enjoyable, b🌃ecause you know you cannot put a foot wrong and today we see drivers paying mistakes in qualy, and I paid it in FP3, and because of that it's always tricky to recover the confidence in qualy, because you know you cannot put 20cm wrong. And I managed, but it was a tricky one.”

Sainz praised the speedy repair job by his Ferrari mechanics in getting his 🎃c🎉ar ready for qualifying.

“Well, first of all the recovery is purely thanks to the mechanics,” Sainz added. “The car was🥂n't back until 20 minutes after the session, which made everything even pressed for time. They did an incredible job to put everything together and to allow me to go out.

“We sometimes talk a lot about Formula 1 drivers beꦑing very special, but Formula 1 mechanics are incredible, especially the guys today did amazing.”

Leclerc was satisfied with his qualif🍎ying performance bಌut was left to rue a front wing angle change before his final run in Q3.

“I am happy with my lap actually,” Leclerc said. “The only thing I am nꦆot happy about is I maybe asked for a bit too much front wing for the last run.

“I lost a bit of the rear and that cost us the fourth place, but 🐬that's life. Tomorrow we are starting P5 so let’s have a good start.♛”