For nine years, Hannah James has been a grid girl.

Now she’s worried about her future, though, after Formula 1 announced it has banned the employment of grid girls for the 2018 season in an effort to avoid being “at odds with modern day societal norms”.

Yeah – you can read more about it here.

James is fighting back, penning an opinion piece for Sky. The 27-year-old not only included personal Instagram posts of her time as a grid girl, but also explained how she has “not once … felt pressured into doing anything I didn’t want to do”:

I think after the Presidents Club episode, people have gone on a rampage and have got totally the wrong idea of what we do and who we are.

F1 has banned grid girls and I’m worried those of us who work in motorcycle racing will be next.

People are googling grid girls and pictures from 20 years ago are coming up, with scantily clad women in bikinis, which is inappropriate.

It really isn’t like that anymore. It’s a lot classier now.

We want to encourage people to come to the races, which are really family orientated now.

Families with children come along so we want to be appropriate and make sure they have a good time.

We’re a real community, all of us grid girls look out for each other, and so do the companies we work for – they’d be the first to step in if we felt uncomfortable.

On the grid there’s security who look out for us but I’ve never felt uncomfortable.

Most of the drivers bring along their partners and children, and we’re friends with them. Their partners are also on the grid helping the drivers out so would they be banned as well?

I mean, who’s going to hold the driver’s umbrella now?

Read her full piece here.

[source:sky]