Juan Pablo Montoya admires Franco Colapinto’s “aggressive” approach despite Baku crash

Former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has defended Franco Colapinto’s “aggressive” approach following a costly multi-car collision at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Colapinto triggered a Turn 1 pile-up during a safety car restart at the Baku City Circuit. Misjudging his braking point, the Argentinian driver locked up and collided with his Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly, who in turn crashed into Lando Norris. All three drivers were forced to retire from the grand prix. 

While Colapinto apologised immediately after the race and admitted he was “completely out of control”, the incident drew criticism from the other drivers involved. But speaking on F1 TV’s post-race broadcast, Montoya offered a different view of the crash, praising Colapinto’s approach.

“I think he expected everybody to go pretty deep. The problem is when you’re so far back it’s like a traffic jam,” the Colombian explained. “Everybody backs off and backs off. And you see he brakes and he’s going to run over somebody.

“So he gets out of the way and gets to the inside, and he nearly stopped the car. He made a mistake and ran over the team-mate and he took Lando out as well. He made a mistake, but it was close.”

He added: “The hard thing there is you’re aggressive; you see an opportunity, and I admire people that try. When you have a restart, they see it as an opportunity. Some people see the restart as, ‘I don’t want to lose a position,’ and Franco is the guy who wants to go and take it.

“When you’re always the guy, like Max Verstappen, who always sees an opportunity to take it, you’re going to make mistakes.”

Colapinto currently sits 12th in the drivers’ championship with 27 points. By comparison, Gasly is 10th with 41 points. 

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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