We don't just stand there looking pretty' - what it's really like to be a Formula 1 grid girl
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...g?imwidth=1400
I’ve always been a motorsports fan. I grew up watching them with my dad, who taught me the meaning of being black-flagged and pointed out the backmarkers. So when I saw a job casting for a ‘grid girl’ when I was 22, I jumped at the chance to be in the thick of the action. Eight years on, Formula One have just banned us from the 2018 season – we’re out of fashion, apparently, and ‘at odds’ with modern-day values. When these values stop women doing a job we love and are proud to do, you have to wonder if the modern world’s become a little odd, itself.
I was already doing modelling work when I started as a grid girl, but this was a different game altogether. The job offers aren’t just based on looks – though there are, of course, physical requirements; usually, you must be a size 8 to 12 and at least 5ft 5ins – they want to know who you are and how adept you will be at the meeting and greeting part of the role. Each job must be applied for afresh. A passion for the sport also helps. For all this, we are usually paid around £100 a day – far less than people might assume.
Before each event, we’re sent the low-down on what the job will involve: what we will be doing and what we will be wearing. No-one is forced to turn up and wear anything they’re not comfortable with, and anyone who claims we are forced into skimpy outfits is at least 20 years out of date. If we don't like the uniform, we needn't do the job. But in this post-Weinstein world, it seems women are deemed incapable of standing up for themselves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...g?imwidth=1240
On the day itself, it’s an early start: up before dawn to be at the circuit for 6am, ahead of the arrival of the public. For me, that might be a good 150 miles from West Yorkshire to Silverstone. Once there, we get changed – I’ve worn everything from a red dress suit (someone remarked we looked “more like bankers”) to overalls – and receive a briefing from the organisers about what’s going to happen. Then it’s off to the grid, where the work begins, and often doesn’t end until around 9pm.
To the armchair enthusiasts watching at home, it looks as if our only job is to stand in front of a car holding a flag, or to stand on a podium and clap – I was up there with Lewis Hamilton, shortly after he came under fire for spraying champagne straight into the face of one of the grid girls after his win at the Chinese Grand Prix in 2015 – but there’s more to it than hanging around. We also have to engage with the fans, both in the hospitality suites and the pit lanes, while they’re waiting for autographs. Most of the girls are motorsports fans: if we didn’t know what we were talking about, we wouldn’t get very far in our conversations with the punters. We’re not just standing there looking pretty, we’re out there representing the brands.
The fans are mostly but not exclusively men, and if we get some wolf-whistling and catcalling when we walk out on to the bridge, it’s no more than you’d get just walking down the street or on a night out. I’ve never seen or been on the receiving end of any male misbehaviour more inappropriate than I’ve encountered in a bar. The attention is not something I take too seriously, and nor does it bother my boyfriend. In fact, it’s more hurtful to hear the women tut-tutting and eye-rolling at our outfits.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...g?imwidth=1240
The idea that we’re there merely as some kind of adornment just doesn’t wash. As a grid girl, you’re made to feel part of the team; you’re in the garages with the team members and you’re always well looked after. We’re not plied with booze or dragged to any after-parties. On the contrary, we can’t drink on the job, and at the end of the day I go home to my own bed.
They say it’s an honour to be a grid girl, and I genuinely feel it is. It is something I have chosen to do; less for the money, more for the thrill of it. We’re told that as part of female empowerment, women should be proud of their bodies and do as they choose with them. Well, who chooses which women get to choose? We’ve been accused of sexualising our bodies, demeaning women and failing to represent our sex positively. Someone even compared us to prostitutes. But none of these people understand what we do, or the fact that we really enjoy doing it.
The presence of women doing similar things is a well-loved tradition across numerous sports: from the walk-on girls in darts (though the Professional Darts Corporation has announced their days are numbered, too) to the ring girls in boxing. But organisers are now under pressure to look like they’re doing the right thing. Right for whom? Not for the spectators. Or for the girls who do it for the love of the job; for the sense of camaraderie and the excitement of being there on the track. Not once have I felt like a victim.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...g?imwidth=1240
I’m 30 now and have a six-year-old daughter, who sometimes come with me to watch. Whether she wants to be a grid girl, an engineer or something else entirely, I’ll be happy, just as long as the choice is hers.
As well as continuing to model, I’ve also got my own company organising fireworks displays so I do not – I could not – rely on my work as a grid girl to pay the bills. I have friends who are nurses or teachers but still choose to come and spend their weekends as grid girls purely for the enjoyment of it. For others, it’s a way of making extra cash while at university – there are even doctors and lawyers.
Like any job there are downsides. When you drag yourself from bed early in the morning to have your hair and make-up done before spending a long day in high heels, you do sometimes wonder, “why on earth do I bother?” But once you’re out there on the podium, surrounded by the fans, that’s when you feel it’s the best gig in the world. We’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Daily Telegraph 2.2.18
