Grid kids come in but where’s the diversity?
FORMULA ONe’S new politically correct post-grid girl world began in Melbourne yesterday, but the sport’s rulers might still be getting a memo from Lewis Hamilton. The ‘girls’ were replaced by ‘grid kids’, in this case young karters drawn from Australia. Both sexes, naturally. But the selection was hardly ethnically diverse, with just one of the youngsters of mixed race. This despite Hamilton posting a video only last Thursday in which he captured the paddock without a single other black face in it. The FIA delegate the selection of kids to each host country’s motorsport authority, and make no stipulation about colour. The grid girls were conspicuous by their absence, with the new kids not holding pit boards displaying each driver’s name by his starting place. The new initiative received a mixed reaction. Stoffel Vandoorne, the McLaren driver, said: ‘It was OK. The kids were very excited and it was good to see their enthusiasm.’ But Sir Jackie Stewart, the triple world champion who was in Melbourne, said: ‘I saw nothing wrong with having grid girls and nor does my wife. The idea that grid girls put off women drivers is baloney. ‘If we had women, the viewing numbers would go up.’ Away from the track, a former grid girl, Melissa James, 25, complained: ‘I absolutely loved it. You want me to wear a super comfortable outfit and go to the VIP areas and watch what I was already going to pay to watch? Yeah, that’s fine by me. It was a dream job.’ Talking of super comfortable, the new grid kids wore racing overalls.