Brendon Hartley emerged unscathed from a scary crash during final practice at the British GP, as his Toro Rosso suffered a failure reminiscent of Sebastien Buemi's bizarre incident from China in 2010.

The Kiwi would have no time to react as the front-left suspension buckled the moment he touched the brakes approaching Brooklands, with his car careering across the gravel and almost flipping before slamming into the barrier still at high speed.

He would be taken to the medical centre for checks before being given the OK and released, with his trip on Saturday the second time this year he has needed attention, the first coming after his collision with Lance Stroll on Lap 1 in Canada.

Unsurprisingly, his car would be too badly damaged to be fixed in time for qualifying and the FIA requested the junior Red Bull team to also change the suspension on teammate Pierre Gasly's STR13 for safety purposes.

Commenting on what happened, Hartley admitted he was simply a passenger to what occurred.

“It was very instantaneous,” he said. "There was no warning.

“I didn’t hit any kerbs and there were no vibrations beforehand. [It happened] the moment that I hit the brake pedal.

“Obviously I tried to fight the car, and slow it down as much as I could, but I still hit the wall pretty hard."

The reaction of other drivers to the former WEC champion's crash was pretty obvious as Sebastian Vettel enquired over the radio to his well-being and good friend Daniel Ricciardo was taken aback by what he saw.

Interestingly, for the 28-year-old himself though, fear never really entered his mind.

"There’s very little time in the car to be scared. There’s too much focus and other things going on," he claimed.

"Maybe the last one or two seconds when I realised: ‘Yep, I’m definitely going to hit the wall pretty hard’, and you brace yourself.

"It’s not fun. I wouldn’t say it’s scary. You’re so focused on the race car and you have adrenaline. I wouldn’t say fear really comes into it."

Perhaps the most anxious part of the entire crash was when the Toro Rosso looked like rolling over just before the barrier as it dug into the gravel trap.

It is for that reason that most circuits have replaced them with tarmac run-offs, but Hartley still praised the safety of racing today to emerge without any injuries.

"Obviously I’ve had a few big hits this year and happy to walk away again," he said.

"I'm disappointed not to make qualifying," he added. "The car was feeling good before the suspension failed. But yeah, disappointed not to get out there.”

Indeed, despite such a worrying failure, the Toro Rosso driver has absolutely no worries about getting back in the car on Sunday.

"I have full faith in everyone that they'll get the car ready for tomorrow and hopefully have a good race," he said.

"As a driver, I think you tend not to think about those things, because if you do, you'll lose lap time out there. I know everyone's not taking it lightly."