Restarts after a Safety Car usually provide one of the few opportunities to gain positions immediately, although they can also turn into a high-risk situation. That was what happened in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Franco Colapinto tried to take advantage of the restart and ended up involved in an accident that took three drivers out of the race.
The Argentine arrived too fast at the first corner of the Baku circuit and collided with his teammate, Pierre Gasly, and Lando Norris, resulting in the retirement of all three drivers. The maneuver generated repercussions in the paddock, but also found messages of support, including one from Juan Pablo Montoya, who publicly backed the driver from Alpine.
The Colombian, winner of seven Grand Prix in Formula 1 between 2001 and 2006 with Williams and McLaren, valued the mindset of the Argentine in such situations. "The difficult thing in that case is that you are aggressive, you see an opportunity, and you have to admire it", he stated in an interview with F1 TV.
Delving into his analysis, Montoya highlighted that Colapinto chose to seek positions instead of just protecting the one he had. "I admire people who try. When you have a restart, they see it as an opportunity. Some people see a restart as ‘I don’t want to lose a position,’ and Franco is the kind of guy who wants to go and take it. When you are always the guy, like Max (Verstappen), who always sees an opportunity to take it, you are going to make mistakes", he explained.
For the former South American driver, one of the keys to the incident was the braking references that the Argentine was managing amid a restart with significant speed differences. "It’s difficult because it seemed like everyone was braking very early. I think the issue is that when you have a reference and you come in, I don’t know, at 320, 330 kilometers per hour and brake at the 120-meter reference, you expect that, coming in at 200, you will brake at the 80, and I think he expected everyone to go quite a bit further", he commented.
From his perspective, the traffic that was generated caused the references to change quickly and forced the Argentine to modify his trajectory. "The problem is that when you are so far back, you know, it’s like a bottleneck: everyone is lifting and lifting, and you see that he brakes and is going to hit someone, so he moves aside and goes to the inside. He almost stopped the car", he explained.
"Yes, he made a mistake and took out his teammate and also took Lando out. I mean, he made a mistake, but he was close", Montoya concluded.
When Colapinto will race again
After his unfortunate participation in Azerbaijan, the Argentine will seek to recover next weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Due to the current geopolitical tension in the Middle East, Formula 1 decided that instead of taking place at the Sakhir circuit, the action will move to the Sepang circuit, Malaysia, although the competition will retain its original name due to the commercial agreements that the category maintains with the Bahraini government. The activity will kick off on Friday, October 2 with the first free practices and will conclude on Sunday, October 4 with the main race.
