Everyone knows that city circuits are the best kind of F1 races to watch. And the latest addition to the 2017 Formula One calendar – the Baku City Circuit – may just be the jewel in the crown. The second-longest racetrack in the world, it snakes past UNESCO heritage sites (the 15th-century Palace of the Shirvanshahs, a vast royal complex, and the iconic 12th-century Maiden Tower), dazzling modern architecture (the glass-and-steel Flame Towers) and the capital’s famed Caspian coastline.
It’s also one of the most technical and challenging tracks out there, offering very little margin for error, thanks to the absence of run-off areas around its angular chicanes. A relatively unexplored Eurasian gem, with a beautifully preserved old city and a futuristic Zaha Hadid designed cultural centre, the millennium-old city of Baku has the potential to turn an adrenaline-fuelled F1 weekend into one of the coolest holidays of your life.
