‘He always does the same thing’: Colapinto reignites Stroll row after Bortoleto’s Brazil crash
Two weeks after fuming his way out of Mexico City, Franco Colapinto has trained his sights on Lance Stroll again — this time using Gabriel Bortoleto’s bruising home debut as fresh evidence.
Colapinto’s irritation with the Aston Martin driver has been simmering since Turn 1 in Mexico, where the Argentine rookie went spinning after dropping his right-side wheels onto the grass. He laid that firmly at Stroll’s door and didn’t bother dressing it up. “He pushed me onto the grass,” he told DAZN. “Stroll never looks in his mirrors. It seems like they’re not properly aligned on his car — I have no idea where he’s looking when he checks them. He always does the same thing.”
Fast-forward to São Paulo and the script felt familiar. Bortoleto, in the Sauber, tried the long way around Stroll through Turn 10 on the opening lap. Side-by-side, a clip to the front-right, and Bortoleto was sent spinning into the barrier. The hit snapped a steering arm and ended his race on the spot. On a weekend when he’d already walked away from a 91G Sprint crash, the Brazilian’s first home Grand Prix became the kind of Sunday you file under “character building”.
Colapinto needed no second invitation to pick up where he left off. “Stroll is always taking people out, just not looking in the mirrors,” he told reporters. “He put Gabi in the wall, it’s what he does every time.”
Bortoleto himself kept his powder dry. He wasn’t interested in blame or a headline. “There’s no pointing fingers here,” he said. “Lap 1 and I was on the outside. He opened a little bit more than what there was of space there, he clipped my front tyre, and I ended up in the wall. I think it’s a racing incident.
“Obviously, if he had given a bit more space, I would have done the corner, probably overtaken him because he had worse tyres than I had, because I was on softs. But again, it’s a racing incident. He didn’t do it on purpose. I’m sure, every time I fight with him, he’s fair with me. So, just racing.”
There’s a kernel of truth on both sides. Interlagos compresses the field like few places on lap one, and Turn 10 punishes optimism very quickly; the outside line is both tempting and treacherous. Equally, the onus is always on the car ahead to leave room, and Stroll’s spatial awareness has been a topic long enough that his rivals aren’t shy about bringing it up.
What’s clear is the narrative is sticking. When one rookie says your mirrors aren’t aligned and another’s afternoon ends with carbon in the fence, perception hardens fast. Stroll won’t care much for that, and neither will Aston Martin, who’d prefer their Sundays defined by strategy and pace rather than bodywork and quotes.
For Bortoleto, the disappointment is sharper given the context: a punchy start, a couple of brave passes around the outside of Turn 6, and a clean drag out of Turn 9 had set up the move. You could hear the what-if in his voice — softer tyres, track position, momentum. Instead, it was a short walk back to the garage.
Colapinto, meanwhile, has chosen confrontation over caution. It’s not subtle, but it is the kind of needle that keeps the midfield interesting. Whether the stewards see patterns or just two messy lap-one moments won’t change the feeling in the paddock: give Stroll an inch on the opening lap and you might want to keep the other three wheels well away from the grass.
The fix for Aston Martin is simple in theory and complicated in practice. Keep Stroll out of lap-one crossfire, let the car’s race pace do the talking, and avoid turning every midfield squeeze into a referendum on racecraft. Because right now, every time green lights go out, the conversation seems to circle back to the same place — mirrors and margins.
