Grid Girls Being Phased Out For 2018 F1 Season

As of the 2018 season, grid girls will no longer be part of the landscape at Formula 1 race events. The decision also will see podium girls no longer part of post-race celebrations.

Formula 1 announced on Wednesday that it is choosing to bring an end to the practice of grid girls standing by driver’s cars and joining them on the podium during the awards ceremony. This takes effect with the first race of 2018 in Australia.

The managing director of F1 commercial operations, Sean Bratches said,

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 One and its fans, old and new, across the world.

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, drivers would be joined by women just before the start of the rare and positioned in front of the cars with placards announcing the driver’s number. They also joined the winners after the race on the podium. The change also affects other Formula 1 series such as Formula 2 and 3.

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F1 commercial rights were recently taken over by Liberty Media from Bernie Ecclestone in January 2017 and under new management comes new changes.

Adding to his earlier comments, Sean Bratches commented that,

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

Many women groups such as the Women’s Sport Trust commended the decision as a show of respect for the visibility of women in sports in a positive way.

While the decision by F1 was recent, the Professional Darts Corporation also has chosen to no longer have girls walking on before the start of matches. This is not something new as organisers of the Monaco Grand Prix chose to replace the grid girls with grid boys as a way to show the lack of taste of this practice and the World Endurance Championship put an end to the practice in 2015 during the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

As for Sebastian Vettel, he was most displeased with the move chosen by organisers in Monaco stating,

Why didn’t we have any grid girls today?. You get there and park behind George or Dave. What’s the point?

While many will agree with the move, grid girls have been a staple in F1 and other racing sports for decades. While some will argument that it takes away a women’s value and sexist, what many fail to understand is the grid girls perform many other functions over the course of race weekends and contribute to the quality of race fans experience.

Author Noah is our American writer who likes to give his own spin on everything Golf & the NHL he covers mainly the US side of the game as Doug covers the Canada. In his time off he can usually be taking to the greens or on the ice playing some hockey