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F1 Rookie Colapinto Laughs Off 'Crazy' Messi Comparisons

Argentine Formula Two driver Franco Colapinto addresses the audience during an event with his sponsor Gulf, in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 12, 2024. Juan Lopetegui/Gulf/Handout via REUTERS/File photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Argentine Formula Two driver Franco Colapinto addresses the audience during an event with his sponsor Gulf, in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 12, 2024. Juan Lopetegui/Gulf/Handout via REUTERS/File photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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F1 Rookie Colapinto Laughs Off 'Crazy' Messi Comparisons

Argentine Formula Two driver Franco Colapinto addresses the audience during an event with his sponsor Gulf, in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 12, 2024. Juan Lopetegui/Gulf/Handout via REUTERS/File photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Argentine Formula Two driver Franco Colapinto addresses the audience during an event with his sponsor Gulf, in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 12, 2024. Juan Lopetegui/Gulf/Handout via REUTERS/File photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Rookie Franco Colapinto on Thursday brushed off talk of him being Formula One's Lionel Messi as he prepares for his debut at the Italian Grand Prix.

Colapinto will become the first Argentine driver to compete in F1 in over two decades this weekend in Monza after replacing struggling Logan Sargeant for Williams, according to AFP.

His appointment delighted fans of the sport back home, but asked whether he felt like football icon Messi before the last World Cup, Colapinto said such talk was "crazy".

"It's very difficult to feel as Lionel Messi, I don't know how it is to feel that," Colapinto told reporters.

"But sometimes I see that they compare me and I'm like, you guys are crazy, like Messi is God, it's like you cannot, how are you comparing me?"

Colapinto hasn't set high expectations for his debut with Williams, who have a paltry four points in the F1 constructors' championship.

"I am not expecting much... I just want to go step by step, I want to focus on myself," he added.

"That's the main thing I think. To be able to be focused on my job. To be able to do what the team expects. And I am, to be honest, more than sure that I can do it."

The action gets underway at Monza on Friday with the first two of the weekend's three practice sessions.

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Paris to Inaugurate Paralympic Games with 'Never Seen Before' Opening Ceremony in City's Heart

Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games - The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan - September 5, 2021. A 'Paris 2024' mural is seen during the closing ceremony REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon Purchase Licensing Rights
Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games - The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan - September 5, 2021. A 'Paris 2024' mural is seen during the closing ceremony REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon Purchase Licensing Rights
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Paris to Inaugurate Paralympic Games with 'Never Seen Before' Opening Ceremony in City's Heart

Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games - The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan - September 5, 2021. A 'Paris 2024' mural is seen during the closing ceremony REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon Purchase Licensing Rights
Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games - The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan - September 5, 2021. A 'Paris 2024' mural is seen during the closing ceremony REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon Purchase Licensing Rights

Just weeks after hosting the Olympics, the summer of sports in Paris begins its final chapter Wednesday with the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games.

More than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual impairments will compete in 22 sports over the next 11 days.

Organizers are promising a spectacular show to open the Games. Once again it's being held outside the confines of a stadium, but unlike the rain-soaked Olympic opening ceremony, which featured a boat parade on the Seine River, the Paralympic ceremony is happening exclusively on land, with athletes parading down the famous Champs-Elysées to the ceremony at the Place de la Concorde, according to The AP.

Artistic director Thomas Jolly, who led the opening ceremony for the Olympics, said the event will “showcase the Paralympic athletes and the values that they embody", and promised “performances that have never been seen before." The July 26 opening ceremony highlighted inclusion and diversity.

Wednesday night's show — set to start at 8 p.m. — promises to celebrate the human body, and with far better weather. As the mid-afternoon sun scorched Paris, some fans gathered early to get top spots on the Champs-Elysées, which leads down to Concorde.

Organizers say more than 2 million of the 2.8 million tickets have been sold for the Paris Paralympics. Competition begins Thursday with the first medals handed out in taekwondo, table tennis and track cycling. Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible. Only two sports on the program, goalball and boccia, don't have an Olympic equivalent.

International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons said that the big crowds expected in Paris will mean a lot to the athletes, many of whom competed in front of empty stands at the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As our ambition is to be perceived and understood as the most transformational sport event on the planet, by having this atmosphere, it’s important," he told The AP on the eve of the opening ceremony.

Accessibility in the parade area has been facilitated with strips of asphalt laid along the Champs-Elysées, with it also being placed over the entire Concorde square.

Parsons added that the ceremony would be the city's way of welcoming Paralympic athletes with a “gigantic hug.”