Grid Girls versus Grid Kids

Let me be quite clear here, I think the recent decision by Liberty Media Group and the FIA banning Grid Girls on the F1 grid from 2018 is quite divisive and wrong. It appears to have been made in haste and without any consultation with fans, teams or track organizers.

What are they putting in its place? Grid Kids with close family members? Now let us analyze this. Are these kids being selected from the local orphanage, ghettos, children’s homes or underprivileged children? The answer is NO. They will be selected by the local motorsports organisations taking kids from carting clubs or other motorsport clubs. Therefore the kids will be the privileged few and, of course, along with their privileged parents. You know a nod and a wink in the right direction.

A grid girl at work

What has led to this rapid ban on Grid Girls? Clearly the recent bad press of sexual harassment and abuse by Harvey Weinstein and other sick celebs with nothing to do with motorsport or F1 will probably have influenced Chase Carey, Liberty Media Group and the FIA. However my belief is it is yet another bad decision which will be detrimental to F1 and the show it puts on for the fans.

Let us look a little further into it. Have the Grid Girls (actually women) complained of sexual harassment? I don’t think so. These ladies train very hard for quite a long time before an F1 event. Most are employed and therefore have lost their income. They are not coerced or forced to be a Grid Girl. The do it for the fun, thrill and excitement. In addition the ban has done absolutely nothing for ‘women’s rights’, quite the contrary it plays right into the hands of the feminists and ‘burn the bra’ brigade and diminishes the rights of the women.

Bernie likes grid girls

The next move will be to ban the Cheerleaders or promotional girls from the paddock, impose a dress code, ban good looking ladies from the paddock club, no low cut tops or mini skirts. I am not joking!

I think Chase Carey and Jean Todt both suffer from delusions of grandeur and have proven they are sexist and against women’s rights.

Ladies in the paddock

I have followed F1 for more years than I can remember, been to many motorsport events and there have always been grid girls, advertising/promotional girls at the tracks. They bring glamour to the F1 roadshow.

I hope that more people in high places, teams, drivers, sponsors speak out against the ban and work towards reversing this decision.

In addition, I firmly believe it is time for F1 teams to think about leaving the FIA/F1 road show at the end of the current concord agreement and start a new series featuring the best racing cars in the world. The FIA is really no longer fit for purpose.

Tony