Franco Colapinto compared to Max Verstappen in major mistake defence

Franco Colapinto has been compared to Max Verstappen by Juan Pablo Montoya, who defended the Argentine's costly restart crash at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix by arguing it stemmed from the same aggressive instincts that define the four-time world champion.

Colapinto was handed a five-place grid penalty for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia after stewards ruled him predominantly responsible for a multi-car collision at Turn 1 on the lap 36 restart in Baku. 

The Alpine driver carried too much speed into the corner, locked his brakes and hit team-mate Pierre Gasly, who was then pushed into Lando Norris, eliminating all three cars. 

Stewards rejected the usual leniency given for first-corner incidents, saying no other driver had contributed to the error, and converted his 10-second time penalty into the grid drop since his car had already retired with terminal damage.

Speaking to F1TV after the race, Montoya said he understood why Colapinto had gone for the gap.

"The difficult thing in that case is that you're aggressive, you see an opportunity and you have to admire it," Montoya said.

"I admire people who try. When you have a reset, they see it as an opportunity. Some people see a reset as 'I don't want to lose a position,' and Franco is the guy who wants to go and take advantage of it.

"When you're always the guy, like Max (Verstappen), who always sees an opportunity to take advantage of it, you're going to make mistakes."

Franco Colapinto 'almost' avoided triggering crash chaos

The former F1 driver pointed to the mechanics of the restart itself as a key factor behind Colapinto's misjudgement, with the long line of cars bunching up after a slow Safety Car period before accelerating hard down to Turn 1.

Assessing Colapinto's mistake, Montoya explained: "It's difficult because it seemed like everyone was braking very early.

"I think the issue is that, when you have a reference point and you're coming in, I don't know, at 320, 330 kilometres per hour and you brake at the 120-metre reference point, you expect that, coming in at 200, you're going to brake at the 80-metre one, and I think he expected everyone to go much further."

He continued: "The problem is, when you're that far back, you know, it's like a traffic jam: everyone's accelerating and accelerating, and you see him brake and he's going to hit someone, so he moves off and goes to the inside.

"He almost stopped the car. Yeah, he made a mistake and hit his teammate and took Lando out too. I mean, he made a mistake, but it was close."