The head of Formula One's newest race believes his fellow promoters should unite together to help improve the future of the sport.
Liberty Media's takeover of Formula One was finalised in January and has already led significant changes, with Bernie Ecclestone ousted from his long-time role as boss. F1's new owners are keen to invest in the sport and stop the decline in race and TV audiences by focusing more on fan engagement.
Arif Rahimov, the chief executive of the Baku City Circuit which hosted the Grand Prix of Europe in 2016 (renamed the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for the coming season), thinks the races on the calendar should have a say in the direction F1 takes in the coming years.
"To be honest, right now it is really hard to say [what will happen] -- the new management has just stepped in and it will take some time until they really grasp on what they want to change and what they want to implement in F1," Rahimov said. "From our perspective we need to really understand how the sport is going to run from this year onward because it is definite there are going to be some changes, not major changes, it will come bit by bit, but we still have to understand how every other party works and then look at doing something new.
"I haven't spoken to the new management yet but as far as I know they are eager to implement some changes into the sport and into the event. As to what exactly they want to do and how it merges with what we want to do, we still don't have a good understanding and it will take some time until all the promoters together in F1, until we do something major that is different.
"To be honest, that will be good to have a joint meeting of all the promoters to introduce new changes across the board that can benefit both promoters and F1 as a sport, and that will be cool if something like that happens eventually. I know there was a promoters' association, which still exists, but we never had a real meeting to investigate the new opportunities."
One of Liberty's goals is to turn each F1 race into a Super Bowl-style event, with the focus on making the entire weekend fan-focused. Rahimov thinks this will take time but believes it will be mutually beneficial for the race hosts and fans.
"There are some commercials aspects of the race that are not quite exploited yet. As an example, off-track sponsorship and commercial activities are not exploited on all the tracks, that is something that can be of additional value to the promoter and F1.
"I've read in the news that they are planning to extend the race weekend to make it a festive week for the country and the city where the races are taking place. I welcome this as an addition as it is good to give the spectators more for their money - the money they are paying for a ticket. All of these things, they are not going to change overnight. It will take time for them and the promoters to understand what is going on, how this can be implemented. It will probably change eventually."