Baku – Azerbaijan

I wrote very highly of Baku when I spent a few days there a couple of years back, and so when asked if I wanted to head back there to watch the Formula 1 it took very little convincing. It’s a country that of course has its little annoyances as a developing oil state tends to have when it tries to open to the world by jumping several steps, but in its defence it doesn’t help when tourists who don’t listen, like me, stumble through the door. For the Formula 1 weekend, Azerbaijan proudly claimed you could obtain a visa on arrival upon providing proof of an F1 ticket. I thought that was great considering an e-visa is $70, but little did I realise that you still had to buy a visa for $40 at the airport. My friend had who had arrived a few days earlier had even told me to seek out an F1 volunteer – of whom there would be many in the airport – that would point me to the right desk to obtain the visa. However, when I landed there was only one volunteer to be found behind a desk surrounded by arriving passengers and before I knew it, I was in the queue for passport control knowing full well I had cocked up. But a combination of ‘new year new me’ and allowing my over-travelled little brain not to worry about such things calmy led me to the front of the queue where a man asked if I had a visa, I said ‘no,’ and he pointed me in the direction of another room. Here, I paid $40 to a man behind a desk who then clicked a button on his computer and told me to apply for my visa on one of the DIY kiosks. Once I had done that, I rejoined the queue for passport control. So, in the end I may as well have just got the e-visa online at home, queued one time at passport control, and with zero hassle regardless if I had done the whole process correctly the first time or not. Anyway, despite wanting to get to the racetrack for second practice, my calm persona was rewarded firstly by a lovely young immigration lady stamping my passport with such a smile I was prompted to see if a phone number had been slipped in with the stamp, and then going down the escalator to the luggage hall to see my bag pop up onto the carousel. Happy days.

Thankfully, Baku has not changed. The taxi driver immediately jumped into conversation with me through Google translate and demonstrates perfectly the type of people Azerbaijanis are, wonderful. If they weren’t trying to speak to us in English, through a translator app would have to do, and not to try and sell you anything, they just want a chat. This is what makes the place so good, it’s full of locals working in the service sector, and despite my absolute disdain for the phrase, it’s not just a job but their life. I would argue, one reason locals still work in these jobs, whether taxis or waiting, is because these jobs aren’t looked down on as they are in other countries. The UK for instance, doesn’t have an immigration problem, it has a class issue, as it always has I suppose, whereby anyone with a British passport believe they are too good to be anything else other than an astronaut, and even that sounds a little like too much hard work. 

Even with the city centre turned into a racing track, the ride into my centrally located hotel went much better than anticipated. I checked in, dropped my bags, cleaned my teeth – I had had an overnight flight – and headed straight into town to find my partner in crime in time to grab a beer and get seated to see some F1 cars fly through the streets. During my last visit I had arrived a week after the F1 and had seen the leftovers of the grandstands as they were being taken down. This time, to see everything set up was rather impressive with the whole promenade turned over to the event with stages pumping out music, bars, food, and plenty of big outdoor areas with beanbags to chill out on. There’s a little more work to do with the food and drink stands admittedly. The cabins had two windows where they could have comfortably served two queues at once but instead, they just focused on one customer at a time. You could get a draught Heineken or a can of Heineken. The draft was poured one pint at a time from a single tap. Getting a can usually seemed the speedier option, but only if everyone in front of you had the same idea, and at some stands they would pour you the beer from the can. I went for a shawarma at midday at one stand, but he hadn’t even got his meat up. When we returned a few hours later, most of the grandstand was there and were getting told off by volunteers because the line was blocking the path, as with every other line, although for some reason ours was the problem. They wanted two lines which made no sense – a little like this passage of writing – but two lines would still have blocked the path such was the length of one line. Get it? Another oddity was not being allowed bottle tops into the grandstands, I assume so you couldn’t throw them at Lance Stroll as he drove past, but what about full bottles of water or cans of beer, or in severe cases, I dunno, a shoe? Anyway, from the F1 zone it is a 10-minute walk into the centre of the city with its ridiculous number of restaurants, cafes, and little bars tucked away in every nook and cranny. As ever the food was epic, the beer was epic, the wine was epic. People eat late here which is usually a problem for me but as the weekend followed a similar pattern of watch F1, drink beers, drink more beers, find good food and wine, drink G&T until 2am, fall into a comfy bed, Baku makes a Formula 1 weekend extremely easy compared to the queues and/or camping at other circuits; but then maybe that’s just a sign of me getting old.  

I don’t want to ruin the race for you in case you haven’t watched it yet, but Saturday’s qualifying was full of red flags and great drivers crashing due to the cold and wind. I’ve been to three races in the past 12 months, one in the UK in July, one in Qatar, and one in Azerbaijan; all have been unseasonably cold and windy. I hate wind, as does Oscar Piastri – spoiler alert. The main race on Sunday was slightly less chaotic but very enjoyable, and as Monday rolled around it was a little sad to think it was all over, such a weekend it was. Still, I wasn’t flying until the evening and so we strolled into the old town which I had strangely missed on my first visit, walked the famous castle section of the racetrack that was now returning to normal city life, and strolled along until lunchtime demanded attention. We pulled up into a random streetside restaurant to be fed yet again an awesome spread of food. This time a couple of plates of much needed salad, and a bowl of meat and vegetables cooked in a pot capped with pastry. It was delicious. I needed a nap afterwards but that wasn’t to be and so we continued walking in the hunt for ice-cream. This we eventually found at the eleventh hour, in a fancy looking shopping centre, by the sea. Despite spending four days together, and neither of us particularly liking prolonged periods of time with, well, anyone, me and my mate hadn’t stopped talking shite for the entire time and so it was as we waited for ice-cream. Being Baku, one chap took our order, one went to organise payment, while two others prepared our chosen ice-creams. I went for strawberry but was told by my mate that it was a boring choice and thus a rant began delivered by me about how strawberries are literally life, that I moved back to the UK for six months of endless fresh strawberries and I will likely stop at nothing to get them through the winter despite their cost and environmental impact when out of season. Part of this rant included me saying ‘I love fresh strawberries, I love strawberry ice-cream, and I love strawberry flavoured lube,’ because this is the type of immature conversation I still enjoy having despite turning 40. The young chap who had taken our order and was standing patiently beside us completely entertained with our ranting politely said ‘I understand what you said’ with a big grin on his face. It is this that sums up Baku for me so beautifully; like strawberries I love the city, I love its people, I love its culture, I loved the whole weekend. 

28^th September 2025