There has been much entertainment in the enclosure about the idea of a Fantastic Prix of Europe which requires all European international ID holders to secure a visa. Obviously, with the possibility of Brexit posing a potential threat, the mainland Europeans have been snickering at us Brits, instructing us to get accustomed to it...
Getting to Azerbaijan has been something of a logistical bad dream. While the nation isn't especially difficult to get to from most European capitals, making it to Baku from Montreal is another matter completely. In the space of 18 hours and three flights, I went to four unique nations - Canada, Britain, Germany, and Azerbaijan - and landed with a body clock so befuddled I wasn't altogether certain what planet I was on.
Each new race is an experience, and the main year in a nation is dependably fun as we attempt and make sense of's what. At first look, Baku resembles a hybrid of Bahrain and Soviet Russia, with old Soviet-style design imparting the horizon to Dubai-lite glass stone monuments and the ever-exhibit neon and Drove presentations we're utilized to from Manama.
In any case, then you wind your way into the old town, past twelfth century dividers that denoted the breaking points of Baku as-might have been, and the cobbled roads and yellow stone structures have a medieval appeal that it's hard not to appreciate. Unless, similar to me, you've committed the youngster error of taking off in heels, and soon thereafter the cobblestones get to be something of an attack course.
Part of the circuit goes through the old town, and as Equation One autos are about too suited to cobblestones as my stilettos were, the race coordinators have tarmaced them over, making ready for F1 autos to tear through an UNESCO World Legacy Center (I trust a first for this game). This is a circuit that requests wads of steel from the drivers, with the autos threading their way through thin lanes and up slopes that are significantly more emotional in individual than they looked on the photographs we'd seen before coming.
With not a single track running until tomorrow, it stays to be seen exactly how rebuffing the track will be, despite the fact that the joke in the press room is that we're all exceptionally soothed Minister Maldonado is no more dashing. Were Crashtor still in the driver's seat of a F1 auto, the entire weekend would be red hailed inside minutes of the pitlane opening for FP1.
So as we sit tight for the weekend legitimate to get in progress, the voyaging bazaar has been attempting to become acquainted with our host city. Early introductions are sure. It's not especially simple to get from A to B, yet that is the way things are the point at which a road circuit assumes control over a city - the same can be said of both Singapore and Monaco.
The best promotion for Baku up to this point has been its nationals. In spite of the dialect hindrance - English is talked, yet especially as a second or third dialect - each Azeri I have experienced has been interested about F1, cordial, and quick to ensure that we make the most of their city as much as they do. While losing all sense of direction in the back streets of the old town on Wednesday, I was drawn nearer by local people more keen on helping me discover my way than offering me visitor tat (a pitiful unavoidable truth in numerous other F1 host nations).
Obviously, it's not all great. I chose to stay at a neighborhood lodging as opposed to joining my associates in one of the media inns suggested by the circuit. Going local wasn't the best arrangement - while the room looked fine (though styled like an Iranian house of ill-repute from the 1970s), the water originating from the taps resembled crude sewage. In any case, inn rooms are effortlessly changed, and it serves me a good fit for conflicting with the stream.
The Baku experience has been a decent one in this way, I'm upbeat to report. What's more, when we don't need to go here from a nation that has no immediate (or indirect...) access to Azerbaijan it will be all the better.
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