Yawn. And once again the PC brigade front up and tell women they can't do something any more because it degrades them - seriously this sort of crap is in danger of oppressing women more than helping. How about letting the women decide? or maybe mix it up and split it 50/50 men and women? Just make sure they pay the men the same wage as the women ffs, or we'll never hear the end of it.
In other news, the FIA have sanctioned a new "Electric Production Car Series" - 1-make saloon car racing for Tesla P100Ds.
TBH I never really pay much attentiom to them and I don't recall them being scantily clad. Couldn't care less, make it half and half I don't care. What I would like to see is women drivers being encouraged and backed in F1, talking about the women holding up number boards is a side show compared to that.
Just saw a tweet from a grid girl basically saying "thanks for putting me out of a job AS WELL as severely reducing my chance of ever being at a GP weekend again". 2 sides to every story and all.
Whilst I don't see what value grid girls add apart from giving me something to lech at I don't see the point to this move, it is always sad when someone's earnings are impacted to PC sensibilities.
Its just people jumping on the SD bandwagon, from what I recall they were always quite conservatively dressed and very innocuous. Are they now going to stop children coming out with football players at the start of matches due to the risk of them being seen as paedophiles?
My first reaction was that its archaic and belongs in the 70s. But after having seen feedback from some of the women who ahve done the role I can't shift the feeling that 'we' are forcing women's decisions on them (photos of the outfits show that in general they are modest so can't even call it leching over women really) If they had gone 50/50 male/female models that would have achieved the goal of being more forward thinking whilst retaining a glamorous appeal (the beautiful people love the sport so you should to!). I guess it will depend on what alternative they go with (if any). Giving the roles to 'real' fans (i.e. via raffle or similar) would be a good approach. I would love to have the opportunity to stand on the grid like a muppet and would clap like mad on the run to the grandstand but I'm not sure my ugly mug would portray the F1 image!
Always thought the 'tunnel of clapping' was forced and awkward looking since it appeared a couple of years ago. The rest of the Grid Girls thing, more faffing about in the margins by Formula 1 and like all their faffing about in the margins it makes them look short sighted and reactionary. It would have been much better for them if they'd decided to hire a 50/50 ratios of Grid Guys to Grid girls and had some bronzed chiselled abs floating around the place to go with the nicely curving hips. I expect the USGP to ignore the ban completely, for Grid Girls to be back within a couple of years and for the various teams to suddenly be employing some suspiciously attractive 'mechanics' on the grid in the mean time. That is a fantastic idea, but like all fantastic ideas I doubt anyone at F1 would consider it.
I'd like to see women in F1 but are there any out there that are actually good enough? You cant just include them for equality reasons they have to be good enough. As for the grid girls, I thought Oh there's some more jobs gone for political correctness, so basically ban modelling etc etc as well. Ask the ladies if they are happy about it and as mentioned before maybe add some male eye candy too.
Two words: Pastor. Maldonado. Two more: Lance. Stroll. Arguing for selecting drivers on merit falls a bit flat when a good chunk of the current driver pool are only anywhere near an F1 car because their backers have deep pockets.
Your reaction fails too as I don't want any paid for drivers male or female only good drivers. If a female driver becomes a paid driver then it would only be for show. I want to know if there is any female drivers out there that are good enough and I'm all for them being included.
That's probably the issue, if they aren't being encouraged or taken seriously at an early age then they probably wont make it which is a real shame.
Looks like there's a few about including a youngster in F3 http://essaar.co.uk/future-female-drivers-f1/
I'm sure there could be plenty of good girls in motorsport but as with girls and engineering they are a lot brighter than us boys and realize its for mugs and there's no money in it so do something more useful instead
Never forget that Pastor was GP2 champion and won the Spanish GP in his second season. He had all the makings of a great driver, but some Twunts just need a bit longer to mature.
Even if they were any good, they'd probably be hard pressed to escape the accusation they were paying to be there or were only there to a tick some diversity box.
It all starts with getting females to attend GP's and motorsports in general. There has been an increase in female drivers in lower categories but motorsport in general is probably harder to get into than other sports like football, hockey, rugby, swimming, Athletics, cycling, golf, gymnastics etc. 30 mins Karting is £35 and there are 11 places in Northern ireland to do it. I pass more places to do those other sports on my 15min drive to work never mind having access to coaching in nearly every primary school these days. I wonder if cheerleaders will be next to go. Surely no one is holding a gun to their head forcing them into degrading slavery. If anything many of the grid girls are in clothing relating to the country they represent and are better dressed than most teenagers wandering the streets.
