Grid girl shadow, Monza, 2017

F1 announces it will no longer use grid girls

2018 F1 season

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Formula One Management has announced it will no longer use grid girls at races, saying it believes the practice is not “appropriate or relevant”.

Porsche, World Endurance Championship, Silverstone, 2015
WEC grid girl ban: Should F1 do the same?
F1’s managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches said grid girls exemplified a practice which needed to be ‘updated’.

“Over the last year we have looked at a number of areas which we felt needed updating so as to be more in tune with our vision for this great sport,” he said.

“While the practice of employing grid girls has been a staple of Formula 1 Grands Prix for decades, we feel this custom does not resonate with our brand values and clearly is at odds with modern day societal norms. We don’t believe the practice is appropriate or relevant to Formula 1 and its fans, old and new, across the world”

Other forms of motor racing have already stopped using grid girls. The World Endurance Championship ended the practice in 2015.

Beyond motor racing other sports have also addressed the roles assigned to women. Britain’s darts championship recently announced it would no longer use walk-on girls.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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244 comments on “F1 announces it will no longer use grid girls”

  1. Was talking about this only yesterday. It’s about time.

      1. As anyone who read the piece I wrote on this a few years ago will know, I completely agree. It’s an overdue change for the better.

        (And it’s sheer coincidence this came out on the same day women in motor racing is the subject of Dieter’s new article.)

        1. Thank you Keith.

    1. It doesn’t say anything about the ‘hallway to the podium’ girls, hopefully it is included in the same pack. I never got why they needed to have all those women clapping for the drivers going to the podium. At the end, they were more visible than the grid girls which get lost in the grid activity and TV editors often preferred to show some grid interviews than grid girls (which make sense) but on the way to the podium, we could only see drivers and ‘clapping girls’.

      1. yeah, that part always felt particularly cringeworthy and out of date. i assume it will all come to a halt, but it wouldn’t surprise me if not.

        if they want some human billboards they should get some children to be mascots and dress them in team gear, or whatever sponsor it is. it always seems to work ok in football and rugby. also, they wouldn’t need paying…

      2. I assume the hallway girls are the same grid girls, hopefully they will no longer be there either.

      3. Yeah, that is even more cringeworthy

      4. Indeed @jeanrien, well said; I hope others here are right those are the same grid girls, and thus that bathwater flushes away too, I don’t know who ever needed it.

  2. If you own stock in a modelling agency, sell it now.

    I’m quite nonchalant about this whole thing. I guess F1 will save some money.

    1. If you own stock in any company that is reliant on any single recurring job for its financial health, sell it now

  3. I don’t quite understand this, I may be wrong with my assumptions though.
    I always assumed the grid girls were treated well, we never see them getting treated poorly or anything. Also, how did they get picked? I assumed that they applied to be picked, and wanted to do it, and enjoyed being a part of the sport.
    I really don’t understand the outrage of them being in the sport, like sure they didn’t really add anything, but they were there and having a good time you know, nothing bad. I don’t think it’s offensive to women to have them as grid girls, F1 is actually very inclusive to women in motorsport, and they’re treated with respect (barring Jos Verstappens instagram comments…)
    I probably won’t really notice them not being there, and I hope they do something like allowing young fans to go and hold the signs for the drivers, get them more involved, but I don’t understand getting rid of them unless Liberty are just caving to the ‘it’s 2017/2018’ argument.

    1. It’s not about how treat someone after you assign him to a specific function. The function itself is the problem, especially as long as there are no female drivers, few women in team management and no grid boys.

      1. @thekuna

        Concisely put. The effects of these things are subtle and a lot of people view them as harmless, when in fact the ramifications are really quite damaging.

        Whilst I’m pleased to see the generally positive response in the comments here, I am also, I admit, a little surprised after the bizarrely negative reaction to the articles regarding Lewis Hamilton’s outdated comments came under scrutiny only a month or so ago.

      2. Fair enough

    2. I kinda agree with this. I know it’s a very delicate subject, opinions that I read on various websites tend to be extreme, one way or the other.
      It’s my understanding that nobody is forcing them to stay there. So they volunteered, they wanted to be there. Why? I assume that being seen and noticed there is a big career boost in modeling, fashion or other related industries.
      So if having an elegant dressed beautiful woman is not “appropriate” anymore for F1 what is?
      I don’t really understand all the fuss about this but maybe it’s just me. :)

      1. Its not about the individual. Its about the greater perception presented that women have nothing to offer other than as a support category for men. ‘Grid girls’ are an anachronism which I am glad to see the back of.

    3. I don’t understand how grid girls are an issue when we race at Bahrein every single year.

      1. I don’t understand how Bahrain is an issue when global warming is still not solved.

        But I don’t understand why global warming is an issue whilst childhood leukaemia is still an issue.

        I don’t understand how childhood leukaemia is an issue while abortion is still legal

        I don’t understand how abortion is still an issue while our society still gives job opportunities based on gender

        I don’t understand how grid girls are still an issue while Bah…. wait, I can multitask woohoo!

        1. Sick children pain can’t be compared to modeling problems.

          I think there are too many white knights in f1 trying to save gridgirls and women from a bunch of nothing.
          There should be a quick,cheap interview study based on grid girls opinions .
          I’ve seen one really angry that she can’t do it anymore.

      2. @paeschli I get your point. I agree that the presence of grid girls is a relatively minor issue. I would be much happier to hear that F1 will stop indirectly promoting dictatorships or that from now on Sauber will fight for race wins instead of trying to survive. But some things are easy to do, while others require very complex solutions. If you refuse to do what you can before these complex issues are resolved, then there is a good chance that you will never get anything done at all.

        1. @girts, @Will Jones, thanks for putting that eloquently :)

    4. Reality is irrelevant. THEY ARE EXPLOITED!!!!

      Why? Because everyone says so.

      Except the grid girls.

      1. I thought everyone was saying it was gross

        1. Yes, “gross” is about right. It was gross, and finally someone pulled the plug on the gawdy display.

      2. Well, the Internet is not exactly flooded with angry comments from ‘jobless’ grid girls either.

        1. Actually, there’s been a fair amount of outrage from the grid girls on social media.

          But Keith doesn’t seem interested in covering that.

      3. Mark in Florida
        1st February 2018, 1:15

        Ha,ha,ha. Yeah the world has real problems and we are worried about models trying to make a dollar. No wonder the third world thinks the first world is run by idiots. You want to make a difference, feed and clothe the poor. Stop feeling like you’re doing something just because it’s all of a sudden popular to gripe about a certain subject that a group says is offensive. Get real I’m offended that your offended.

      4. Good one.

    5. I always assumed the grid girls were treated well, we never see them getting treated poorly or anything. Also, how did they get picked? I assumed that they applied to be picked, and wanted to do it, and enjoyed being a part of the sport.

      I can’t speak for every single grid girl there ever was, but I doubt that’s the case…

      A few years ago, while away doing Erasmus, I actually met with someone who was a grid girl for a couple races. We got to talk for a bit: she said F1’s offer is basicly ‘you get to travel around and make a bit of money’ (not that much, according to her). Work conditions are terrible, however: back then, round 2 was Bahrein. Now, this girl was fairly light-skinned but they still paraded her around the paddock in a bra all day long in full Bahrein heat. She told me she wanted go back home immediately after that (she was badly sunburnt), but since this was Bahrein and she didn’t know anyone, she stuck for the other 2 days and quit the moment she got back to Europe…

      I don’t know if it’s the same for all girls: she was never actually “on the grid” for what she told me, but I think for the most of them, this is what happens.

      1. “Work conditions are terrible” really!? I think that work conditions in F1 industry are terrible. Mechanics, engineers, designers work around the clock. They travel around the world, leaving their families for weeks… They are payed for it of course, but nothing can pay the time you didn’t spend with your child when it needed you the most. That’s terrible. However, people working in the industry take these sacrifices because they love what they do. It should apply to grid girls as well. If you don’t like the job you don’t take it. Simple as that.

        1. @boomerang oh please, spare us… they know the travel schedule when they take the job…

          What is it about the subject that makes people throw common logic out the window?

      2. Well then in that case, I may be mistaken. Of course my assumptions were just from an outsider perspective.

        1. It’s always sad to see an F1 tradition go but I must admit this wasn’t a big issue for me when I heard the news, however after reading the comments above and hearing from grid girls themselves it is worrying that we live in a time where we’ve declared their jobs as worthless and that we know best.

  4. Let’s be honest. Nobody will care in a few days/weeks.

    1. If they didn’t announce it, no one would have even noticed. I’m always put off by the presence of the grid-girls, so I did notice when there were a few races last year with no footage shown of them, but it didn’t seem like anyone else did. There was no negative reaction.

      1. Yeah, but if they didn’t announce this, it always wouldn’t send the message it’s trying to send. If you’re trying to make your auto repair station welcoming to all genders and you’re known to have a bunch of playboy posters on the walls? You need to do more than quietly bring the posters down…

    2. Duncan Snowden
      31st January 2018, 16:34

      Apart from the girls.

      But who gives a damn about them, right? We’ve got mores to conform with here.

      1. Knowing someone who has worked the GP for a number of years as a grid girl she’s really not very happy at the mo at a very nice earner being pulled from under her feet.

        Could be seriously impactful to her earning potential if the other events she does similar work at follow suit.

      2. Photographer here, the models don’t give a single care. Working models turn down 6 jobs for every one they take, that’s why there’s a whole sleazy industry dedicated to getting new girls in and ripping them off before they get proper representation. There is work going begging for them

        1. For how long though? And what if they, you know, actually liked the sport?

          1. Since the explosion of trade fairs in the 90’s and probably for as long as their presence in an industry sells product.

            I really like the sport, can I be a grid model? I have a penis, and am in my 50’s is that ok with you? No? Huh….

          2. @willjones
            If a company is willing to employ you to model their clothes/wear their brand, you should have the right to earn money that way if you wish. That you wish to deny women that opportunity shows you don’t care about women’s freedoms at all.

          3. “If a company is willing to employ you“

            Yeah, about that…. seems this here is the point isn’t it. Fom have just announced that they are not willing to employ them, so…. what now white knight?

  5. The F1 Fanatic survey is not really representative, guessing not many girls / women had a say.

    1. @blik Are you suggesting that on the whole, women are more in favour of grid girls than men? I mean, I’m not going to say you’re definitely wrong here, but that doesn’t feel quite right to me. Certainly, anecdotally, I say pretty much every woman I’ve ever discussed it with was, at best, neutral, and generally speaking opposed to using women to decorate race tracks.

      1. IMO there are many women that love doing promo work and the exposure they get. Just another door slammed in their faces. Women that would oppose grid girl type promo work probably crusade about anything that makes them feel relevant.

        1. IMO there are many women that love doing promo work and the exposure they get.

          They might be many in absolute numbers, but I doubt that they represent a significant proportion of all females. I think MazdaChris is right, and my own anecdotal experiences seem to confirm that, to most women, seeing grid girls is just like seeing scantily clad models in ads for beer or car insurances: weird.

          1. I have never met a female that was even neutral towards them.

            Whilst this may be a “door slammed in their faces”, it’s one that my female friends would rather see closed, if it means getting the crowbar slightly further in on the door that takes their daughters to driver, engineer or even simply forklift driver at the circuits in future.

            @blik @mazdachris

          2. @gongtong why don’t you ask the same women if they’d be happy to lose their job of choice because of some other women they’d never met would approve of it?

          3. It’s not about approval though, is it Aa, it’s about this disapproval losing formula one a viewer. It’s capatalism actually working well.

    2. “The F1 Fanatic survey is not really representative,”
      It’s representive of F1 fans. Why would we need voice from people who don’t even watch F1??

      1. I’m more concerned with another job opportunity being closed for women that can do the work.

        1. Then you should be angry about that job opportunity being closed to men too.

          1. Grid girl positions were never available to men… don’t be dense in an attempt to be prove your point.

            The grid girls can come or go and I don’t really care, it’s all this smugness that makes me cringe. The grid girls don’t need your help guys…. if anything you just hurt the bottom line of a hundred plus budgets in an attempt to white knight.

        2. If you’re concerned about THIS job opportunity to be closed, then IMO you have the wrong priorities.
          I would be more concerned about all people have the same job opportunities throughout the job spectrum, and based on that decide what kind of work they want to do.

          And if it were Grid People (rather than Girls) then this might have gone on for years. It should be about Promotion (of the sport) or Function (grid positions). But we both know this wasn’t about that; it was a way to get aesthetically pleasing images for the (male) fans.

          1. Well said.

  6. GOOD!!!! It’s about time. Having grid girls is just tacky and awkward, and is reminiscent of a time when cavemen called the shots.
    (I’m a member of the target audience of grid girls)

  7. A fair enough decision I suppose, I’m not too bothered. It’s a shame for the girls that chose that career.

    Feminists reducing the amount of jobs for women, funny if you think about it.

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      31st January 2018, 15:47

      @boli It’s funny that the biggest obstacle standing in the way of feminism’s goal is other women.

    2. Maybe they can do something else? It’s not a zero sum game this life business you know.

      It’s a good move for the sport.

    3. Your concern for women’s employment opportunities is duly noted.

      No-one even made this much of a fuss when Daniil Kvyat was demoted to Toro Rosso not long after his second podium!

      1. Kvyat went from formula1 driver to….formula1 driver..

        Heartbreaking… I know…

    4. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this was a decision made by FOM. Not too many women in senior exec positions there, I’d wager. But go ahead, blame women & feminists if it pleases you do so.

      1. PC Culture Kills
        2nd February 2018, 3:38

        Exactly what we all want, pink cars and women drivers. Like the WNBA it will fail.

  8. I couldn’t care less about this particular topic. Still, though, I don’t understand this obsession to try to fix something that isn’t broken.

    1. it’s F1 after all

    2. At least the deck-chairs will be tidy as F1 slips beneath the waves.

    3. The presence of antiquated grid girls contrasted with the gross underrepresentation of women in the sport is what is broken. A young girl watching F1 will think her only chance of being involved is by getting half naked and standing around as “eye candy”.

  9. Given how packed and busy the grid often is on a race day (especially at Monaco) with mechanics, team members, journalists, drivers and thier engineers / physios / managers, TV crews / presenters, VIPs and celebrity hangers-on, I’m amazed anyone actually notices to grid girls anyway.

  10. How disappointing that F1 didn’t take a lead on this. People have been calling for it for ages, and now it looks as though it has happened because the Professional Darts Corporation did it last week, rather than because it is the right thing to do.

    1. The Professional Darts what?

    2. Keep telling yourself that…

  11. Good. I always found the lines of women clapping the drivers into the pre-podium area to be unspeakably awkward. Women aren’t to be treated as ornaments, and I’m glad this outdated norm is being phased out.

  12. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    31st January 2018, 14:24

    Fair play. I imagine in 20 years time we will look back in disbelief that they had grid girls. Our culture is changing for the better and F1 needs to move with it. It’s a belittling, patronising role for men’s pleasure no matter how you dress it up.

    1. Our culture is changing for the better

      I don’t see people getting happier and happier…

      1. @damon It’s a difficult one to measure, as the article explains, but overall they probably are.

        https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction

        And a good part of that is through making (painfully slow) progress on these type of things. Of course some men are far less happy these days, but “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”.

        1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
          31st January 2018, 17:02

          @damon That’s because people chose to be negative. Life has never been easier and that’s fact.

          1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
            31st January 2018, 17:02

            In MEDC I should add.

        2. But women are also less happy.
          I can paste a link but there is a number to sink your teeth into.
          More mental health issues, more depression amongst women and it’s increasing not decreasing.
          This is despite higher grades at school, higher university attendance then men, higher salaries amongst young women, 20s and 30s.
          Trying to crowbar more women in F1 for the sake of equality is unlikely to fix this.

          1. Couldn’t that easily be explained by women being able to get treatment for these conditions, as opposed to the rather convoluted alternative that women are happier in a society that discriminated against them more?

          2. @Will Jones studies reveal people are less happier lives overall. Men and women.

          3. Don’t believe you mate, sorry. Feel free to post your studies though, and the journal they were posted in

          4. That’s a newspaper article, not the requested journal article and it’s source is another newspaper article, from the same paper. The reason that’s important is because scientific papers undergo vigorous checks to make sure they aren’t misleading or drawing false conclusions, and they are peer reviewed.

            By the way, depression isn’t unhappiness. Please don’t ever think that if a depressed person cheers up, they aren’t depressed any more.

          5. It course you choose to ignore it. Even though the data was founded by a government study. There are other studies proving it, in the usa for example. Why don’t you show a link disproving what I say.

          6. Then link to the government study, the one about happiness, not depression – which is as relevant to a discussion on happiness as an article which says hepatitis is on the increase.

          7. Well, to measure happiness is a hard proposition. Some studies, of course, would likely be happy to take a look at the GDP per capita and the life expectancy and make a judgement from there. Some will ask whether people are more satisfied with their lives now or ten years ago (as if they could remember even what they’ve dinned a week before). Even if you went a step beyond and took into account pollution, social mobility etc. one can probably start to notice the subject is extremely complex and no easy answers are coming out.
            There are a few studies, though, such as this one, which sort of support Aa’s point of view.

            I’m moderately inclined to believe their conclusion, specially for developed countries, since psychology has long theorized and verified that beyond the basic needs – food, shelter, a mate – there is little increase in personal satisfaction (at least after the initial high of finally getting something you wish for). Case in point, if the few hunter-gathered tribes who have made it to this century or the previous one are taken as an example, man as it was during 99% of his existence, had the conditions of being just as satisfied with his life as the civilized man is. It would make no sense if man or any other sentient animal had evolved to be miserable and depressed with its natural way of life. Sad minds and bodies take a huge hit to productivity, life expectancy etc. even in our sheltered, civilized, environment, so imagine that on nature.

    2. Women like checking out hot women too. Just saying…

      1. @JC guess what, there’s a lot of opportunity for that still, and not just online, or through dating portals. No need to have it as an official part of the sport.

  13. Now they just have to take the opportunity to replace the grid girls with, you know, actual girls (and boys too of course), give the kids the opportunity to be part of it, give them the chance to experiment with go-karts at every circuit, and maybe they can get more women interested in Motorsport (at least for the long term), since that seems to be the problem in the talent pool.

    1. replace the grid girls with, you know, actual girls (and boys too of course)

      @johnmilk

      They’ll probably realise that it’s absolutely cruel to have kids stand around the grid, holding a number plate in the heat/cold etc. It will then be compared to child slavery and banned in a few years as well. Everything in the World today is a double edged sword.

      I thought the grid girls were happy to earn a little cash, be a part of this event and probably be on telly as well. Instead it’s made to sound that they were treated like paraded slaves in ridiculous working conditions against their free will.

      It doesn’t affect me much that they won’t be on the grid next year, as I tune in for racing.

      1. @todfod

        Instead it’s made to sound that they were treated like paraded slaves in ridiculous working conditions against their free will.

        I’d like to see an example of this claim being made, I don’t think I’ve seen any.

        1. @keithcollantine

          It’s a collective sentiment from all the posts so far justifying FOMs decision. I’m not saying liberty said this was their reasoning.

      2. @todfod

        if we go there, the kids in the football matches would have to be banned to.
        Things can be done properly, if kids think what they are doing is fun, and if they get engaged in motorsport I don’t see the problem.

        1. @johnmilk

          Don’t get me wrong. I think your idea is great and I’m sure it can be executed well enough. The point I was trying to make is that everything can be flipped on to the other side.

      3. @todfod it has never been about working conditions, its not the justification for the decision either.

  14. What a political correct world we live in, strange times indeed, what shall next?

    1. Indeed, that is the problem. There is always something the PC lot is “bothered” by. It just keeps going on and on and on until the world is devoid of any cultural expression or fun. In the end everything must be grey and boring so no one will be offended.

      1. Nothing to do with PC, just moving with our time.
        But if old guard ‘men’ so prefer they can still get an old Pirelli calendar and lock their bedroom doors.

      2. +1. They no longer cared about the fact, only the altitude.

        1. attitude. Sorry

    2. @jagged-jake you really don’t see what’s outdated in the image of girls serving as decoration while men undertake daring feats?

      1. It’s incredible how far the Anti-PC brigade will go isn’t it? Bloody bizarre.

    3. Next I will watch Tom Daley’s latest video because I think he is hot and I cannot get enough of him. A lot of other F1 fans will probably google some pics of sexy female models because of the same reason. Which is great.

      But what does that have to do with F1?

    4. I do totally agree. A men regulated sport, mostly followed by men, with only men driving, denying any access to women (but widely open to idiots with just a bag of money as only owned ability) arises itself as judge in what women MUST think about working as model. OK, so every model, actress or singer MUST feel like a sexual object just because a bunch of political correct males orders to do so. This is not sexist at all…

  15. GtisBetter (@)
    31st January 2018, 14:31

    about time. In a decade we will look back and say “what were we thinking!?

    1. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
      31st January 2018, 15:38

      Indeed. That this sport continued to promote the attitude that men should aspire to be heroic, whilst women should aspire to be pretty and stand beside them, was cringingly archaic. Nice to see F1 joining WEC in giving it an overdue boot back to the 1950’s.
      In reference to the RacingLines article, perhaps now young girls will be less likely to view motorsport as a men-only club, and will be more inclined to have a go in a kart, so we can get a bit more blue in that pie graph.

      1. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
        31st January 2018, 15:47

        *green in that pie graph*
        #jolyonfacepalmer

  16. Long overdue.

  17. Not that I really care one way or another, but I never had an impression that grid-girls were or felt exploited in any way…but perhaps I am wrong. If anything, Formula 1 is extremely small and closed environment and one of the benefits of being on the inside is the opportunity to make contacts and broaden your options. Now this will no longer be possible for these ladies…be it right or wrong. Not sure if links are allowed here, but maybe this is worth checking out when it comes to this particular topic: http://www.gpfactsandnumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2013-Alessandra-Maestroni.pdf

    1. @gpfacts But it’s never been about working conditions actually.

  18. My view has always been in support of keeping grid girls, partly because I know someone who works in the industry and she (and, it seems, everyone who does the same job) finds this whole PC ‘movement’ to be ridiculous and damaging to her earnings. If a grid girl supports herself being there, and enjoys doing the work, she doesn’t need me or anyone else to hop on a noble steed to ‘protect’ her…

    I expect she and her colleagues are currently worrying about which area of their work will be targeted next.

    But, sympathy for them aside, it won’t impact on my viewing pleasure. It’s more the reasons, rather than the decision itself, that causes my current sense of disappointment.

    1. @neilosjames I’m sorry that your friend, and others, are losing their jobs.

      Nobody is jumping on a steed to protect ”her”. They’re trying to help future generations see themselves as more worthy than that. Not to discredit her career choices, but I’d much rather see my daughter aspire to be an engineer. And far rather my son doesn’t see women’s roles as narrow as things like this. It’s short-sighted to ignore the ramifications as I’ve said elsewhere.

      It might appear PC to some, but it’s about time those of us with power and privilege used it for some decent progress. And yes, that is noble.

      1. Michael Brown (@)
        31st January 2018, 15:56

        @gongtong So for those reasons, closing off a potential job for that woman is just.

        1. It’s got nothing to do with that, and you know it. It’s how women are objectified and how sex is made into a commodity that is being dismantled here.

          1. @mbr-9 I’m not sure if yours was a question or a statement. But in my opinion, yes.

            I would disagree if I felt that the years of extra employment opportunities were building capital for women that would one day be used to change their plight. But I don’t.

      2. but I’d much rather see my daughter aspire to be an engineer

        @gongtong

        Well .. they all can’t be engineers and doctors. If the have the skill set, genetics and passion for modelling, then let them have a career choice they want. If being a model is such a moral low ground, then let’s ban display advertising with females and males all over the world. Let’s ban showcasing one’s appearance and declare it a crime. Let’s ban Instagram and Facebook as platforms that support exhibitionism. Heck, let’s just ban movies while we’re at it.

        Let’s see if this actually translates to some sort of progress in the world or is actually regressive in nature.

      3. @gongtong That is well put. As well as in our modern democratic states women situation is greatly improved it’s globally quite bad. If we can do something for the greater good then go for it. Everybody come to see a race anyways and will forget in a matter of months. And the message sent is immense, all good.

    2. On the flip side, jobs in modelling for men is increasing at an unpresidented rate. Because, you know, those jobs she’s not getting are still being done! I hope your friends career works out for her, but if not, I hope she has a skill or qualification to fall back on.

  19. This will have little to no impact on F1 in about 2 weeks or so as everyone forgets about this, not that that’ll stop the 200+ comments on “PC gone mad” or something like that!

  20. Grid girls, No grid girls….. I can’t say I really care as that isn’t what i’m watching to see & during the time there on the grid my focus tends to be on things like the gridwalk & anything else thats going on anyway.

    I will say however that for all the people that get all worked up & offended about gridgirls, I’ve seen plenty of comments over the years when the topic of banning them has come up from girls that act as gridgirls who actually really enjoy doing it so I guess from there perspective it’s maybe less of a positive step. I also believe that in Japan getting the role of a Gridgirl/Race queen is seen as something quite prestigious & a chunk end up having professional modeling career’s (Or start racing themselves in the case of Keiko Ihara).

    1. @stefmeister of course gridgirls are in a bad situation now. I got no hard feelings about grid girls but whats the proportion between grid girls and women treated badly on our planet? Its really a case of f1 positioning itself on a subject that is bigger than f1 and grid girls will be ditched for that purpose I guess.

  21. I don’t really care, but I don’t think there is anything negative in having grid girls.

  22. I expect the usual brigade of manly men’s men to rush to the barricades moaning over pc gone mad, but watchoo gonna do? Some people, you just gotta drag them in kicking and screaming. I mean, if you want to pretend it’s still the 1950s (or 1850s for some) and men decide and women listen then perhaps a relocation to the UAE or somewhere similar may be an option.

    This is long overdue and I certainly hope it includes the lines of clapping girls after the races, which I thought was the particularly jarring image if F1 wants to dust itself off and join us in the present.

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      31st January 2018, 15:52

      I can’t believe F1 actually goes to such backwards countries. Don’t they know it’s the current year?

    2. I’m actually pretty happy that apart from a couple of people, the F1Fanatic commenters are living in this century. The reactions over on FB and Twitter have been apish at best.

  23. The PBO, the darts organisation, has only recently done a similar thing by now allowing models to walk on during the players’ entrances – well overdue in both sports, I think.

    The reasons for their removal are really quite damming: it’s for no reason other than for people to look at them, usually in a seedy way. We should be encouraging meaningful roles for women in sport rather than just idling and looking beautiful.

    I’ve always found the argument of “but the girls want to do it?”, I’m not so sure: the job doesn’t require skills, and the women want to get paid. If you offer the opportunity of a job, there are people out there who will inevitably accept it – this doesn’t validate the morality of the role. It always seemed rather awkward to me, them just standing there with a forced smile on there face whilst being leered at, and the podium walk with the girls clapping makes me laugh every time because of the absurdity of it.

  24. Grid girls send a message that men are there to do the serious work and women are there to look nice. In modern-day Formula 1 that couldn’t be further from the truth; there are lots of women employed in all sorts of capacities by the teams, all the way up to Team Principal. Grid girls also enforce the notion that the sport’s target market is young heterosexual men. This move is a good one and will help the sport appeal to a wider audience. Well done.

    1. Grid girls also reinforced the notion that to be interested in F1, you had to be heterosexual.
      I agree with your opinion; I’m glad they’re gone too.

    2. @estesark interesting view. I had not seen it also that way, fair enough.

  25. Michael Brown (@)
    31st January 2018, 15:54

    At the very least I could compromise with making sure the girls don’t wear skimpy outfits. Personally, I think the FIA should stay out of this and let the circuit owners decide if they want grid girls, grid boys, and the row of clapping people for the podium if they want it.

  26. Despite never caring for gridgirls, I do find this dissapointing. People claim it is for the ‘greater good’ but really it is about controlling what women can and cannot do and men can and cannot see. Keeping us plebs safe.

    It is also about keeping working class women working class and denying them the opportunity of a lifetime to travel and earn a significant amount of cash in their youth to use on their families, education, business ventures etc for the rest of their lives. Predominantly pushed by those who simply don’t and will never qualify for such a job whilst denying F1 one of the last aspects of glamour it has.

    No one is coming with a female racing sports series because the equality champions do not care. It is another chance for people to dictate what women can’t do.

    1. @Aa Well, isn’t Carmen Jorda still in a role at the FIA thanks to wanting such a championship? Seems like that view is represented.

      By the way, why can working class women only be at an F1 race as grid girls? I don’t really understand.

  27. OK, great. Done and dusted. Now can f1 please focus on more pressing matters?

    1. Absolutely – all the back and forth about right or wrong matters not here. What we really want is the PROBLEMS in F1 addressed and moved forwards. This decision is frippery to distract at best.

  28. I personally would have filled the grid with good looking men and women. Good looking people are on television for a reason.

  29. Two question:
    1) how much the grid girls were paid by weekend?
    2) why MotoGP do no see the same kind of discussion about regulation, competition or grid girls?

  30. This is a decline of Western civilization. Decline of Europe and it’s values.
    I can’t believe the comments.
    Do they need grid Magrib refugee boys wearing paranjas instead of sexy girls who provide at least some entertainment before some processional and lacklustre races?
    What a shame.

    1. That would be more appropriate for 50% of the potential audience so, yeah, go on then.

    2. It’s the end of the world, surely …

  31. Good. When I watch F1 with my daughter, I want her to aspire to be in the car, or an engineer, team leader, or in fact any productive member of a team. Not just to stand around looking pretty.

    1. @mattb I couldn’t agree more.

      1. That’s great, but I would hope, and I have no reason to think otherwise, you can and do have conversations about this type of thing with her, and that the mere sight of grid girls would not have that much impact aspirationally speaking, as she’s already being groomed to understand that all things are there for her future with the desire and effort put in.

        My point being grid girls are one small step, and it is still very much up to parents to instil values of equality from early days. Then by the time they are old enough to see the umpteen things they’re going to see far far worse than grid girls, they’ll already know how to respond. ‘They’ meaning young girls, and of course boys too need to be better taught early on how to behave respectfully and understand the true equality of women. Girls are going to see a female airline attendant while at the same time a female will be flying the plane, and they will know that there is freedom to aspire based on different levels of education, opportunity, desire, and abilities. Hopefully, and in a perfect world, we all end up doing something we love to do.

        1. Agreed. But, at the minute, she’s 4 and aspires to be a unicorn.

    2. Great comment. And it also applies to folks who watch F1 with their sons and must explain why this objectification exists in such a cutting edge sport.. Finally F1 has come into the 21st century!

  32. F1 really has bigger problems than grid girls that needs solving.

    1. It certainly does, but whoever decided that in order to fix multiple problems you much tackle each of them in sequence and not approach one until another is sorted?

      Not having grid girls any more is a quick and straightfoward change. Revising F1’s prize money structure, as another example, will take years. Why wait to do the former just because you haven’t done the latter yet?

  33. This will also avoid the cringy fake hairstyling and the invisible tie adjustment that the drivers do when they walk in front of those girls. :D

  34. I wish F1 management acted as quickly on fan complaints – engine noise, penalty system, DRS overtaking (abolish it!), etc. Grid girls are largely pointless, so no mourning from me that they are gone. But they didn’t go because they needed to – they went because it’s currently the politically correct thing to do.
    Next, we will hear that F1 is ‘too male’, and that the sport needs to work on increasing the number of female drivers. This is not a bad thing, but entry requirements will suddenly have to be revised downwards to ‘encourage more women drivers to take part’. Unfortunately, PC actions are like a wedge – there’s just no stopping once you begin.

    1. Revised down from being able to effectively buy your way in? Pretty difficult to get much lower than that! Anyone who thinks like you do is at best scared of change and lashing out at the invisible demon the daily mail said made life scary (insert Fox News substitute of your choice here) but you’re not wrong – that there are no women in f1 since the late 50’s shows that society still moulds children according to their gender, and little girls who say they want to go karting are put off by society and taught not to want that, hence why we don’t have women in f1, and that’s not FOM s job to fix- the fia maybe, but FOM can be the role model

    2. You made a typo there – you accidentally slipped “politically” in front of “correct”

  35. Luckily from this year plenty of people will remain without a job, such a relief to hear this news.

    1. When you’ve got transfer technology to display the number on the car itself and people paying vast sums of money to do the applauding, the job is a bit redundant, no?

    2. You realise that “Grid Girl” is not an occupation, no? They are models. Modelling gigs will always exist.

      1. +1 – So sick of hearing about how this is supposedly putting people out of work and the implication that this is the work women should be doing in F1. It’s one weekend per year in a freelance field. No one’s going hungry because those 20 modeling gigs aren’t available that one weekend.

    3. Maybe you should open your eyes @alfa145. Currently there is more of a shortage of qualified people for many jobs than that there is a lack of work in more and more places. I am sure the most talented models will be able to find better paying jobs than being a grid girl. And others will be able to use other talents they have.

  36. Good those pesky women are gone. F1 is for men only! I would much rather some old bloke dressed up as a Mobil1 bottle prancing around on the the starting grid!

    1. +1 Hahahahaha

      I was hoping for the Michelin tyre man to be rolling around on the grid before the race starts.

  37. Welcome to heteronormative hell …… :-|

  38. And what about the Bizet Carmen anthem of the podium ?!
    Come on, Formula One Management, please broadcast more modern music on the podium !

  39. It’s great to see entitled people with no stake in the matter really stick it to people with the audacity to think they have a right to self-determination in the work they choose when there are power structures to topple! Yay progress!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHQt79Z08os

    1. I know. What makes it worse is how patronising it is to men and women.
      Women are no longer given the freedom to have the job of their choice because their presence will make men behave like uncontrollable animals.

      1. No one is stopping them from being models, all that’s happening is that they won’t be hired for this job. You do understand jobs right? You can’t decide how you want to be paid and by whom and expect them to be ok with that, right?

        1. I do understand jobs, oh wise one.
          Let me explain it simply for you.

          Do you understand that being a model in F1 is quite lucrative and can lead to a greater and more lucrative modelling opportunities from there on?
          Do you understand that there are lots of businessman/women who may be hosting brand events/promos who would wish to employ models for such an event?
          Do you know what networking is? The F1 grid is an ideal place for it regardless of job.

          1. So is my ideal job feeding Teresa May grapes*. So because I want that job, and it would be good for my future prospects it must be made to exist for me right? Because after all, lots of the Tory cabinet would like someone to feed them grapes.

            * not really my ideal job, but you get the point

          2. That isn’t an equivalent argument Will. You’ve created as weak a position as you can with a nonexistent, nonsensical job position to make an easier argument to knock down. A straw man if you will.

            I’ve not seen evidence that the job these girls performed wasn’t sufficiently in demand to justify it’s existence. There may be a very vocal contingent of ideologically motivated individuals who through their resentful eyes despised the idea of objectification. But unless someone presents me with evidence that promotional models generate less value than they cost, then so far as I can tell they’ve lost their job due to the sanctimonious bullying of those that resent the free choices these women made for their professional life.

            I won’t miss grid girls. I also wasn’t offended by them. But I despise those who hide their malice behind the veil of compassion to promote their ideological interests.

          3. They hold a post with numbers and clap the winners. We all know they do tonnes more that that, but that’s the literal only bit of their job which they wont have to do anymore, the bits that can be replaced by a plant pot.

          4. And for what it’s worth, no a private business is under no obligation to give or retain any job they decide doesn’t need doing any more, no amount of wailing about job losses from the sjw brigade can or will change that, grow up!

          5. @WillJones
            But the job did exist and was taken away. And it was taken away due to groups with little to no interest in F1 making a fuss, and it worked.
            Where is the demand for more females in F1 seats? Or the demand for female racing series? There isn’t any because they don’t care. They just want to control what men can watch and the jobs women can do.

            If the government opened the grape feeding position and you took it, happily earning more than you did doing a normal 9-5, only for The Mail to demand you lose your job, then I’d tell the Mail where to go.

          6. Aa, this is the real world. People’s jobs change. These trilingual women, experts in their fields who work in sometimes terrible conditions for a difficult job are going to be removed from holding a stick and clapping duties. They will still attend, for a wage, they will still act as brand ambassadors and they will still need to converse fluently in 3 or more languages. They just won’t need to take a break from their highly skilled work to hold a stick and clap.

            Everyone’s job evolves, theirs is about to. I’m sure they’ve coped just fine with the news, so take off that shiny white armour, they don’t need you to stick up for them, you and every other bleating socialist

    2. @philipgb I love how she says ‘making money for men’. So if a women were to be running the modelling agency, it’s all fine?

      1. @flatsix

        It’s a toxic attitude like men are women’s enemy and it’s betraying your gender if somehow your productivity produces wealth for a man. The women in that interview and no doubt most promotional models are happy doing what they do and are by no mean unfairly compensated for their time.

        The only true way for us all the be equal is if we all have nothing.

  40. What kind of sport has all the sportspeople as men and all the scantily clad numbers-carriers as women? A long overdue step in the right direction.

    I’ve seen a lot of outrage about this (thankfully not so much on F1F) and I’d like to hope that’s a knee-jerk reaction to perceived political correctness rather than genuine disappointment that there will be fewer girls to lech after.

    1. It’s absolutely a kneejerk reaction. FOM were experimenting with this in 2017 and there were a number of races where there was no footage of the grid girls. No one noticed. If they didn’t make an announcement about it and there were just no grid girls in Australia, no one would notice then either.

  41. I think its a good decision for F1. Its anachronistic and a throwback to old fashioned marketing of taking some champagned up middle aged men to a glamourous F1 race with scantily dressed women. Or cigarette advertising girl to make men to associate smoking with sex and success… Basically the gird girls may have looked good, but the overall picture didn’t. This change may actually attract sponsors which is what Liberty are trying to do with a load of other initiatives.

  42. I did not expect this to happen so soon. On the other hand, this is the right decision that should have been made some time ago.

    Some are concerned (or pretend to be concerned) about ‘lost jobs’ or ‘choices taken away’. I do not buy it. Firstly, it is not F1’s duty to employ grid girls, just like F1 does not exist to employ farmers or poets. Secondly, ‘grid girl’ is neither a profession, nor a permanent job. Thirdly, the modern world is obsessed with beauty and that will not change any time soon. Beauty sells so beautiful people will still have countless opportunities to use their looks to make money one way or another.

    This is about drawing a line between the sport and the ‘glamorous ladies’. This is about the message that F1 wants to send the world. There used to be a time when all F1 drivers were masculine men, who were constantly surrounded by hot girls, whose job was to look sexy, smile and applaud a lot. That time is over now. The world is more complex than that and that is a good thing.

    1. There used to be a time when all F1 drivers were masculine men, who were constantly surrounded by hot girls, whose job was to look sexy, smile and applaud a lot. That time is over now. The world is more complex than that and that is a good thing.

      Now F1 drivers are asexual men, surrounded by other men, whose job is to take pictures for their instagram accounts and manage their wellbeing?

      1. @george Or when women were allowed to be women, and men were allowed to be men, and nobody cared if they didn’t. Now half of us don’t even know what gender they are and we must all scream for tolerance and condemn the intolerant. Spot the hypocrisy.

      2. @george Please read the last sentence of my post again. By the way, I really liked Grosjean’s response to the news: “I don’t care, I’m married with the most beautiful girl on earth!”

  43. Would be great to see some kids get the chance to be a mascot for a driver every race now.

    Better yet, how about an animal that represents the country of the driver?! Hamilton – British Bulldog. Alonso – Bull. Bottas – Moose/Elk. I want to see a moose on the grid.

    1. What have they done to you people. What have they done.

  44. A great decision, long overdue.

  45. BOOOOOOOOOooo

  46. Nothing like cutting job opportunities for women to keep masculinity on top. The idea that this has been decided by some group of old men under pressure from a rather small group of activists, I find it laughable.

    Could we perhaps start a protest, because I’m rather offended only three teams can win GPs, it’s fairly discriminating I would say.

    1. Don’t worry they’ll tackle that discrimination problem. I’m following this sport almost for four decades and tackling the real problems always created at least two new ones. I’m in eager expectation.

  47. Has anyone asked any of the grid girls themselves for THIER opinion ??

    Thier livlihood is kinda at stake here.

    I’d be very upset and annoyed if someone told me I couldn’t do my job any more just because someone with a politically-motivated agenda who (probably) doesn’t know anything about my industry wanted to make me unemployed just to prove thier point in a smug and snobbish manner. Like it or not, modelling is a legitimate career choice that people choose to enter hey and If someone chooses to go into it and make a success of it, then I applaud and respect them. If we’re going down this route, then let’s ban all of those fragrance adverts on TV which show men with thier shirts off and women drooling all over thier rippling abs.

    I’m sure a lot of them, if given the chance to be interviewed, would have very valid and legitimate points about thier chosen career paths but because the liberal elite think they have the monopoly on rightiousness these days it seems like no one is allowed to disagree with them even if they are the person directly affected.

    I don’t pay the grid girls much attention anyway, but if they have earned the right to be there through genuine hard work and determination, like anyone else, they shouldn’t be treated like idiots.

    1. I wonder how it would work if you had to seek the permission of every contractor you decided not to employ again “Hey, so we don’t need you to do that any more, but thanks for your hard work”

      “No, I’m a contractor, once contracted my job must exist indefinitely”

      “Right you are then, you just keep washing my car… I guess I just sold my car, but I’ll keep paying you to wash it and you… have fun”

  48. The issue here is around the simple fact of exploitation. If a women chooses to flaunt themselves in away that plays on their attractive looks and are happy doing it that is not exploitation. If a women is been forced or is been paid a wage which is not worthy of what they are doing and is therefore unhappy that is exploitation. If anyone is exploited as at any time in history this needs to be stopped, this is simply not the case with grid girls. They are well paid and happy doing their job. There is no justification for banning grid girls by referring to exploitation.

    Okay so the next point is relevance. What do grid girls bring to F1. They came about as part of the macho imagine of the sport dominated by men, with women providing the beauty and men the excitement of driving on the limit. I would argue that grid girls are an important part of this imagine created by F1 in the past. However going forward what is the imagine we want F1 to be? In the past it was danger and grid girls. Now its safe cars and family friendly events? If that is the case then getting rid of grid girls makes sense. They will have become irrelevant. That is up to the owners of F1 to decide.

  49. Duncan Snowden
    31st January 2018, 21:09

    Take a good look at yourselves. Quit the smug back-slapping for a moment and look at what you’ve actually achieved here: you’ve reduced the earning opportunities for women. Yes, only in a tiny, trifling way, but it won’t stop here, and that’s the point: grid girls isn’t the hill on which I’d choose to take a stand, but a stand will have to be taken sometime. And it’s not “women” in some vague abstract sense who have been harmed, but actual, living, breathing, people who chose to do that job. Moreover, in doing so, you’ve made Grand Prix grids proportionately more male. Well done. I’m glad you’re all so pleased with yourselves.

    But know this: the people future generations will be mystified by are you. Do we marvel that they had Can-Can dancers in the 19th Century? Or at the people who campaigned against them “for the benefit of society”? Are we amazed that people drank alcohol a century ago, or at Prohibition? That was “progress” (and it was the original “progressives” who led the charge). The people who resisted it were “conservative”, “outdated”, “clinging on to the past”, “on the wrong side of history”. And they didn’t really care about personal freedom, of course; that was just an excuse concocted by beer-soaked drunks who’d have to sober up.

    In reality, history doesn’t take sides. However one trend is clear, across the centuries, despite attacks and setbacks that all seemed permanent in their day: people have minds of their own, and prefer to be free to choose their own way, for good or ill, rather than be told what’s good for them by people who think they know better. I know I won’t convince you that this is why you’re wrong. This is a moral crusade, and people convinced of their own moral superiority never listen to reason. And please believe me when I say I accept that your hearts are in the right place. You believe you’re doing the right thing. But you are wrong.

    1. Don’t worry, women will continue to be objectified for money no matter what F1 does.

      1. What exactly is it about their ‘objectification’ that is so wrong?

        I’ve been objectified in work before. I’ve been an object that could carry x amount of weight between locations. I’ve been an object that could answer x number of phone calls in a shift. An object that can type at x number of words per minute. An object that achieves x number of sales.

        If someone values me for my intellect, or for my temperament, by what standards do we judge those to be more virtuous qualities to be valued for than the quality of my physical appearance? They’re all factors of my natural potential combined with work I put in to maximise that potential. They’re all potentially of value to someone who may compensate me for the exploitation of those qualities.

        Now if you feel valuing certain qualities is degrading, fair enough. But I think we should really grant people who do model or exploit their physical appearance professionally the dignity of not judging the talent they pursue professionally with contempt because we arbitrarily decide other qualities which people have just as little control over such as intelligence to be a more commendable endeavour.

    2. Can can dancers still exist… so… I mean they don’t draw the crowds like they used to, but you could absolutely go see a can can in most Western countries at the drop of a hat, if you wished. And that you _dont_ go to see them to the point that you don’t think they exist any more is the point, whatever the rights or wrongs of the conservative campaigners, it wasn’t them who had any effect on the can can. But no one wanting to watch a can can was why they disappeared. So it is with grid girls, people just don’t care about them, so why spend money on something that absolutely costs you viewers but doesn’t draw more than is lost in?

  50. What a pity. F1 just became even more miserable and grey.

  51. That cheerleader hype fest at the USGP last year was obviously the nail in the coffin of grid girls in F1. Finally, everyone could see what a preposterous spectacle our sport was in danger of becoming. There is no lack of places where woman are objectified for entertainment, and I find it heartening that F1 now has the courage not to be one of those places anymore. Now let’s get down to business and do something about DRS!

    1. @ferrox-glideh

      Now let’s get down to business and do something about DRS!

      hear, hear!

  52. Face it, the WEC got rid of grid girls in 2015, the world hasn’t fallen off its axis and you all still watch it.

    On a side note, I never knew so many men were interested in the employment opportunities for women!

    1. @yellowsapphire

      Why wouldn’t they be? Most people aim to be moral and ethical people. We don’t always get it right all of the time, but the intention for most people is to be as good as the world allows them.

      Sometimes that means they do the wrong thing for what they think is the right reason. But typically most people would choose to improve the world is that could.

      So you can see in this thread most people’s arguments for grid girls Isn’t some misogynistic need for scantly clad girls, God knows you can find better options for that elsewhere. I think most people’s objections are the motivations of the people who have protested them.

      1. Isn’t that just as bad as the person who thinks that all people defending grid girls are misogynistic? No one knows why those who find grid girls tacky do, except that person. All the assumptions flying around – you say this so you must think this. You say that so you must think that. When someone says “ I find them tacky” why can’t that opinion be respected instead of attacked?

        1. I can respect most opinions right up until someone has a sense of entitlement that because something has caused them offence then it should be as accepted as a fact.

          So I might well respect that you believe grid girls should be a thing of the past, I might play devils advocate a little with you just to debate the issue, but I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong having an opinion on something even if it’s contrary to my own.

          On the grid girls matter though I just don’t think we’ve seen the practice put to bed because there is a majority of opposition to it, nor because there is any solid moral argument against the practice. I think it’s happened because of very vocal, self-righteous types who appoint themselves as speaking for women without anyone needing or wanting them to.

  53. Pathetic tokenism – kowtowing to the SJWs.

    How long before we have mandatory quotas of female, LGBTQ, beme, disabled etc drivers?

    1. That’s not what tokenism is…

    2. The only sjw s here are the ones bleeding about lost jobs.

  54. Because all this time the system has been oppressing these girls and forcing them to do this job. Why didn’t I see it before?

    1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      1st February 2018, 6:14

      Yes, it’s crazy – Liberty Media, that’s a misnomer. More like Puritan Media! :-)

  55. Please Liberty, can we now focus on getting the “celebrities” who know naff all about what they’re looking at or about to watch off the grid? They just get in Brundle and DC’s (well, for 2018) way! Let the fans, or kids, or whoever on instead.

    As for the grid girls, I’ll miss the Austin beauties. But it’s the right thing to do for equality.

  56. F1 takes great pride in being one of the few truly international sports, but they’re acting like colonizers here. The idea of ‘objectifying women’ isn’t shared by many of the cultures that hold events. So, it’s up to us to force our ideals upon them, as if they’re children that need to be led by the hand? Nice. I have a better idea, why not respect their views and let the individual promoters decide on whether they want grid girls at their event? Besides, if Liberty is so sincere about banging a moral drum, why don’t they tackle the human rights issues that F1 has been avoiding for so long?

  57. Just to log my brief entry into the journal of public discourse on this:

    When I was 20 I’d have had a problem with this news. But I’ve learned, matured, whatever, since then. You either have gridgirls & gridboys, or you have nothing. Just having gridgirls is untenable. They shun (at least) 50% of the potential audience. As a straight man who grew up with the internet, the only time I’ve ever been affected by gridgirls is a) when they’ve been in the way of seeing cars during pitwalks, and b) when they’ve looked laughably ridiculous wearing tight yellow lycra in freezing wind on the grids of an F3 race at Silverstone. People get their kicks on the internet these days. Draw kids’ ticket numbers out of a hat on the day of the race instead.

    1. Something I should have added: There are points about the gridgirls having the right to “choose” if they do this job, and “what about their rights to be paid to do this task” [paraphrased]. You can’t go down that route without reaching the conclusion that F1, as a company owned by people (ultimately), has the right to choose what services it wants to pay people to do. If F1 no longer wishes to pay people (directly or indirectly) to hold number-boards and what not then, within employment morals and contracts with suppliers, it does not have to do that indefinitely. I can’t think of a moral argument which was force them to in this specific case.

  58. This is no surprise. This mite be a good opportunity to instead of the grid girls, somehow incorporate the younger fans/kids to somehow be involved. Similarly to what they do with football where they walk out with the players and shake all their hands. Something like that. Maybe a parent and child could be walked out with the driver of their choice. Make it more family orientated

  59. Gosh what a shame…

    Formula One has always been about hot cars and hot chics

    This political righteousness makes me vomit

    1. +100000000000

    2. You still can make it to Geneva International Motor Show ;-)

    3. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      1st February 2018, 6:28

      Yeah, I think they are trying to suck the fun out of F1. Liberty Media has to understand that the US F1 fans are going to go through a massive transition next year just by switching to the new coverage – that’s without taking into account the larger cars, the thong, and the missing models.

      I hope the world coverage feed is good but it’s like replacing your favorite show with another show…

    4. Couldn’t agree more.
      I don’t care if there is grid girls anymore because I am here to watch the race and the car. But Feminism is about women have the freedom/right to make their own choices. Now it has turned into Anti-Manism or Anti-Traditionism. That is totally different.

  60. I’m actually quite surprised. I always thought that things like grid girls etc were the domain of each organiser not F1 management.

    Now if only they could focus on important things like DRS etc instead of window dressing…….

  61. Idiot F1!

  62. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    1st February 2018, 6:09

    Yes and while we are at it, let’s get rid of the champagnes at the end of the race. Oh and celebrations and interviews. I think the drivers can inspire the worldwide by doing a 10 minute educational course at the end of the race. It can range from literature to poetry, mathematics, and science. It’ll be a lot of fun and Chase Carey can play the part of the instructor.

    Seriously, what is wrong with women on the grid? They are all professional models who do this for a living so it’s not really debasing them in any way… If anything this sport is so male-dominated that it actually benefited the sport to have the women present.

    Or maybe half the drivers should be women so F1 can have gender equality – it shouldn’t be performance-based… I disagree with this decision. I thought it was great to see beautiful women from different parts of the world at the races but obviously I’m the only one :-)

    A million thumbs down :-)

    1. Yes and while we are at it, let’s get rid of the champagnes at the end of the race

      You beat me to it. I was just about to type that when I glanced at your comment above. I think spraying and sipping of champagne on the podium promotes alcoholism to the youth. I don’t want my kids to grow up looking at racing drivers drink champagne. They’re probably going to drink and drive fast when they grow up.

      A few other items I feel that should be on FOM’s progressive, modern and politically correct agenda –
      1) I think pay drivers should be banned in Formula 1. It isn’t fair to have this level of socio-economic disparity in competitors. One of F1’s values are to have the best cars with the best drivers in the world, not the richest drivers in the world. It provides a false dream to kids growing up, who will feel their father’s have fallen short on expectations by not becoming billionaires.
      2) I also believe that Formula 1 should not exceed road speed limits. It’s archaic to have people drive fast. In today’s day and age, with self driving cars, why should human’s be allowed to break safe speed limits? It doesn’t set a good example for the youth. They’ll all want to drive their cars a little faster and jeopardise pedestrians and other drivers in the bargain. Maybe they need to just do away with drivers completely and have self driving formula 1 cars that do not exceed 60 mph.
      3) They need to remove fossil fuels entirely. They also need to adopt a system where the energy used in the batteries is completely renewable and the batteries are entirely recyclable. We don’t need educate viewers about the harmful effects of fossil fuels, and make sure that the F1 sets the example for the entire world going electric.

      1. @freelittlebirds, @todfod

        Thanks for this – it is a fantastic parody from both of you on the importance (or otherwise) of this matter. Excellent!

  63. Really stupid idea. “””Modern””” feminism has ruined another joyful thing. They weren’t oppressed or anything. If they want to share their good looks to get a moment of fame and make the show more enjoyable, just let them for christ’s sake..

  64. This is a step backwards. Its not being progressive, but regressive. Anyway, F1 is in their own right to hire, not hire or put whatever they want- dancing Canines, Mr Olympias, whatever- its their show. Hopefully they don’t ban teams hiring their own Pit Girls, like Pirelli.

    The irony here is that professionally I find it difficult to place them when I do my motorsport videos, because I think they detract from the usual approach of drama and intensity I aim for. But when I do commercials, they light up the images, giving it glamour, a certain glitz and atmosphere of Motorsport.

    I remember one of the award winning pictures of Monaco this year was a girl in a bikini while a Formula car passed below. That represented according to the press the glamour of Monaco. How ironic.

    I actually know of many love stories in motorsport that come from relationships between grid girls and members of teams. They are all part of the “F1 circus”. they became lovely motorsport families. And yes, grid girls are beautiful women, but they are professional models. They have to know how to act for the camera, pose, the exact timing of their job. Its not simply a Doll with a board wearing little clothes. The best professionals are better paid, like any other profession.

  65. By all comments here you can see political correctness has gone rampant. Most people have been brainwashed at this point. There was nothing wrong with grid girls, if they were doing it consensually.

  66. I am very happy, almost relieved by that decision. And believe me, I am not high on political correctness. I have always found the practice of having grid girls both insulting to women – telling them that we liked them to just do nothing and be pretty – and insulting to men as well – telling us that we need to see hot chicks in order to keep us interested in what is going on while no cars are running. Come on, is F1 the pinnacle of motorsport or a silly TV game ? Bernie would have been happy to steer it towards the latter, but it looks like the new owners have better ideas.

    1. @Palindnilap

      I have always found the practice of having grid girls both insulting to women – telling them that we liked them to just do nothing and be pretty – and insulting to men as well – telling us that we need to see hot chicks in order to keep us interested in what is going on while no cars are running.

      Totally agree – especially on the second point.

    2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      1st February 2018, 14:13

      @palindnilap I disagree and I’ll explain why. A beautiful woman who is hired to be present at a F1 race is no different than hiring a beautiful model to wear a company’s clothes for a commercial. If someone finds that insulting and they must find it insulting to be fair to both women (otherwise they are just hypocrites), then one really should never read magazines or commercials or anything else.

      The women are simply there to promote the sport and add a touch of womanhood to a sport that is completely male-dominated. They usually look very classy and well dressed and in my opinion that’s awesome cause everyone else looks like crap at the races. At least in soccer, the coaches wear suits to help make the sport look better. At most races, it’s too hot for the F1 staff to wear suits.

      It’s also common in movies to use beautiful actresses so if we go by Liberty Media’s decision then we should all boycott movies or at least find ones with actresses who gravitate towards the norm of looks or the unattractive side. Is Casablanca a great movie or just an insult to humanity? Liberty Media would probably lean towards the latter.

      As we all know Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady’s wife and the world famous supermodel, makes more money than him using her looks and body. Is he wrong for marrying a person whose existence based on our reasoning is a complete insult to women around the world? Of course, if anyone knew how difficult it was to maintain that body and walk the way she does in front of thousands of people and to do that for as long as she has, then you wouldn’t see her as an object but as an inspiration which Tom obviously does. And so does Brazil as she was part of the Opening Ceremony at the Olympics. Does anyone know what it takes to succeed in her field and to get there?

      As a matter of fact, just her financial success is a testament to her business acumen. She makes more than any F1 driver so the entire paddock should tip their hats off to her when they see her! If money is a measure of success, she’s better than all the F1 drivers.

      As far as I recall they’ve never had a successful woman do the F1 interviews at the end of the race – if that’s true, that’s a lot more insulting and demeaning than anything else.

      1. @freelittlebirds
        As you can expect, I am not really buying into your claim of moral equivalence, but your points are not without interest. I would argue that there is a continuum of shades of grey on that subject, and that F1 grid girls are pretty far on the dark side.
        The general idea is, what do we expect from those women apart from looking pretty ? What function do they fulfil ? What competence do they display ? People have tried to explain that grid girls did much more than smiling on the grid, but that is pretty unconvincing. Their raison d’etre is to look pretty on the grid and around the podium, and since they are there, why having them doing nothing all the rest of the time ?

        Among your examples, TV commercials featuring gorgeous women are the closest to F1 grid girls. Almost all TV commercials are fundamentally insulting to their viewers, whether there are gorgeous women or not, since they tell us “you are so dumb that after watching our silly 30 seconds, you will be more likely to buy our stuff”. I’d have TV commercials disappear with pleasure, but they are obviously not going anywhere.

        The thing with displaying clothes is that you can’t really display them without a body to wear them. And of course, the nicer the body, the better the clothes will look. That is obviously not going to change either. As you will know, this is not without its problems, since often the clothes seem to look best on models with a too-thin-to-be-healthy body type. But that debate is far more complex than the one about grid girls.

        Finally, it is absolutely true that there is an inordinate proportion of good-looking people in movies. On the other hand, acting is a very difficult job, and we are rightly in awe of the persons who do it best. Of course, sometimes there are actresses that are there only to look pretty, and who don’t really know how to act. Of course, it is a pity that there are a lot of actress that don’t get the parts because they are overage or outside the canons of beauty. Still, we are usually very far from a case of “just be there and smile”.

  67. Very disappointed by this decision. What can I say I am a pervert who enjoys looking at pretty Women. I guess that makes me a criminal in this modern world.

    1. @aliced

      You have access to the internet. I’m fairly certain you can find other ways to be a pervert without relying on F1.

  68. So, in essence, they just fired most of the young women employed by formula 1.

  69. @keithcollantine First https://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/?p=93822 and now this – seems I have more influence than I thought.

    Anything else you want me to get fixed?

    1. @fluxsource Do you have to ask? DRS, man!

      1. @keithcollantine I hereby state my official support for the removal of DRS from F1.

  70. Why not also ban f1 because it’s dangerous even with halo.Let’s ban all sports in fact.

    Senna’s girlfriend was a gridgirl .And they made each other really happy.
    I don’t think he layed awake at night thinking why don’t they ban gridgirls.

    I didn’t even notice them when looking at races but i think banning the job is wrong.Next they’ll ban models, dancers, acctrices and force them to be racing drivers or surgeons.It’s ridiculous.

    Anyway f1 is going away at a rapid pace soon there will be just one engine a year than all electric no noise no fun cars.

  71. Thanks to everyone who’s responded here so far. As usual it’s impossible to reply to every single comment though I have read all of them. I collected together several of the more common views and responded to them here:

    https://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2018/02/01/goodbye-grid-girls-your-comments-answered/

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