But there is one place where women’s lib remains an entirely alien concept. The Formula One grid, home of high-revving engines, macho drivers and overalled mechanics, has no space for girls.
Unless that is, they are dressed in tight-fitting Lycra and posing chest-out with lips puckered. These are the grid girls: 48 curvy young women who tour the world marking out the drivers’ grid positions on grand prix race days, looking good in colourful sponsored uniforms.
Some say they’re a tacky throwback to the 1970s, when totty and motorsport went hand in hand. Feminists have even demanded the use of grid boys. But when I found myself standing between Barbie and Cindy lookalikes on the qualifying day of the British Grand Prix a fortnight ago I couldn’t help thinking it was the girls who were having the last laugh.
“Yes, it’s a job, and yes we are on show, but it’s just a bit of fun and, let’s face it, we get to go to the grand prix,” laughs Kelsey Elliott, from Putney, south London. “There’s no male equivalent.”
She’s right, of course. I mean, what boy wouldn’t kill to walk out onto the grid on grand prix day carrying the flag or the name banner of one of the top F1 racing drivers? In some ways it’s F1’s equivalent of the football club mascot job that most boys dream about.
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“We are ambassadors of the sport and the sponsor’s product, of course, but at the end of the day it’s really just one big party and we’re here to look good,” insists the thoroughly pneumatic 21-year-old Mylissa Piva. “But where does the partying stop and the job begin?” I ask Mylissa as she helps me into a costume and peers sympathetically at my cleavage. “Well, we would never get drunk and fall down, but a bit of flirting isn’t unheard of,” she smiles enigmatically. Don’t think for a moment these girls are so indiscreet as to gossip, but between the giggles I did hear mention of Montoya and Irvine.
“Plenty of practical jokes go on between the girls and the mechanics, but the drivers tend to keep their minds on the job,” says Ian Jickell, grand prix marketing manager for Foster’s.
“Although last year one of the girls did have dinner once or twice with Eddie Irvine.”
Less chivalrously, drivers have been overheard discussing the standard of their girl with mechanics on the car-to-pit radio seconds before the start of the race. Apparently comments such as, “I bet Schumacher doesn’t get one like this”, have been heard.
It comes as little surprise to learn that one of Kylie Minogue’s dress designers created the cute outfits for Foster’s, the company sponsoring the grid girls at three of this season’s grands prix. The unofficial edict is that Bernie Ecclestone, the head of F1, should feel comfortable with his daughter wearing the costumes. In previous years the British Grand Prix has seen Marlboro shorts and RAC boiler suits; in America the costumes include eye-wateringly skimpy hot pants; and in Malaysia the girls are fully covered in respectable sarongs. It all depends on the host nation and the title sponsor.
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There are specialist agencies who supply the grid girls, most of whom come from Germany and travel around the world doing the same job but in different outfits, although some are sponsors’ employees or competition winners. Mylissa is the latter. Having won a Foster’s competition in Melbourne, she is taking a break from her law degree to be a grid girl.
So does she see being a grid girl as a career boost? Is it a step into modelling or motor racing? “Yes and no. The job has given me a profile that has brought in job offers.”
“Modelling job offers?” “No, mergers and acquisitions,” she winks proudly.
I like the idea that someone who looks so cute can be so smart, but let’s face it, being a grid girl isn’t exactly a tough job. All they have to do is mark out the grid one hour before the race, one girl holding the national flag of her assigned driver, the other carrying his name and car number on a banner. Then they hang around for the drivers to show up and neatly file off the track again.
But there are hazards — impaired hearing is the first that comes to mind. The girls can wear earplugs if they wish, but they’re very aware that lumps of foam sticking out of their ears are not good for appearance, so most risk their hearing rather than spoil a photo opportunity. They are the closest people to the F1 cars who don’t have ear protection.
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The other hazard, dehydration, became apparent on qualifying day when three girls collapsed on the grid during the F3 practice session. The health and safety officer swooped on the girls’ tent, demanding to see the drinking facilities. In all the excitement it must be easy to forget to keep drinking water.
There’s no question that the girls are having immense fun. It may seem dated to use girls as attractive appendages to motorsport, but it’s great showmanship, and as someone needs to mark out the grid anyway, you could argue it’s practical, too.
Walk around a testosterone-fuelled atmosphere such as a grand prix in a 3in blue Lycra miniskirt and it is hard to feel practical. The girls take jostling photographers and wolf whistles in their stride, but what about bottom pinching? Is that another hazard of the job? “They wouldn’t dare,” snorts Mylissa. But then I can’t help thinking, as I fiddle with my ridiculously short hemline, that a little bottom pinching wouldn’t go unappreciated at my age.