McLaren’s Piastri Wins Baku Grand Prix Hobbled By Spat With France

By RFE/RL

Team McLaren and its driver Oscar Piastri claimed victory at the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix on September 15, an event marred since its launch eight years ago by ongoing complaints of rights problems in the Caucasus state, and this year by a spat with France.

The race through the Baku City Circuit on a mostly sunny day in the capital was tightly contested by Ferrari pole-sitter Charles Leclerc before the Australian Piastri outpaced the Monacan for the checkered flag.

Rights groups questioned Formula 1 organizers for allowing dynastic President Ilham Aliyev to host an annual grand prix when the event arrived there in 2016 despite what they called a dire rights situation that included arrests and harassment of dissidents that have continued in many cases in the intervening eight years.

This year, the competitors in Baku had to abandon a weather radar usually used to plan strategy due to the French system’s provider’s absence after French nationals were warned against traveling to Azerbaijan, which has been accused of waging a disinformation campaign and stoking violent unrest in the French-ruled Pacific island of New Caledonia.

Sixty-two-year-old Aliyev has tightened his grip on the oil- and gas-rich Caucasus nation since taking over from his ailing father in 2003.

Two decades into his rule, Azerbaijan ranks near the bottom of Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perception Index.