Rahimov: Mr Maffei has been involved in F1 for less than half a year

The promoter of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has hit back at ‘ignorant’ criticism of his race by Formula One’s new owners Liberty Media.

Arif Rahimov (pictured above with Fernando Alonso during a track tour last year) was reacting to comments made by Liberty CEO Greg Maffei, who told a conference in Florida last week that Baku paid a big race fee but did “nothing to build the long-term brand and health of the business.”

“It does upset us obviously. Mr Maffei has been involved in F1 for less than half a year,” Rahimov told Reuters.

“We’ve been working on this project for three years now so we have more experience with F1 then them. I think saying something like this is ignorant, but we’ll see,” added the race promoter.

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