By NATE SAUNDERS, ESPN F1 Assistant Editor
ESPN
Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has defended F1’s decision to race in Azerbaijan next year, arguing the nation’s human rights record and abuses of media freedom should not be of any concern to the sport.
The street race in Baku is part of the 2016 calendar and will be known as the European Grand Prix. The human rights record of Azerbaijan has been called into question, notably when the nation hosted the inaugural European Games in June this year.
At that event, journalists from a range of international publications including the Guardian were banned from entering Azerbaijan. The Guardian was banned after reporting in December on the government’s clampdown on freedom of speech and any political opposition.
Several representatives from international human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were also blocked from entering the country ahead of the Games. Human Rights Watch estimates that that in 2014 alone the Azerbaijani government prosecuted or jailed 35 journalists, human rights activists or critics on unfounded charges. Their ‘World Report’ on Azerbaijan from last year can be read in full here.
When told about journalists being denied entry to the Games in the Friday press conference in Hungary, Tost replied: “There must be a reason why the visa was denied. I don’t know the background. To be honest, I don’t care about this. So we go there, we race there and that’s it. It’s your problem how you get the visa.”
Pressed specifically on whether it was appropriate for F1 to race in a country with such a dubious record, Tost was unequivocal that F1 should only be concerned about racing.
“Absolutely correct because Formula One is sport. We go there to entertain. We do not go there for any political reasons. It’s the same issue we had a couple of years ago with Bahrain. We can’t be involved in the political topics which, in those countries or in any country, which are on the list. The main target for Formula One as a sport is to go there, to entertain the people, to bring a good show and to have hopefully a good race.
“If we will be put into the corner to say, OK, we should not go into a country where maybe the press freedom is not at a certain level or any other issues, then I don’t know where we go racing. Then we have problems with China, then we have problems with Russia, then maybe we have problems with Brazil, then any country, some negatives which you can bring up, we just go there, make our show, present our sport and that’s it and therefore we should go. We should not be involved in any political discussions.”
The 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix was rescheduled and finally cancelled due to an uprising in the country at that time.