How Monza grid girl chaos revealed a bigger problem for F1

Formula 1's latest embarrassment over grid penalties has prompted some soul-searching. But there's no real solution in the rulebook - only an overhaul of far greater significance.

Jonathan Noble Sep 12, 2017, 2:38 PM

Upd: Sep 12, 2017, 6:30 PM

If you thought the Italian Grand Prix's grid penalty farce was bad for fans at home, you should have seen the chaos on the startline at Monza as the countdown to the race got under way.

With engines revving away in the garages, the grid girls - following their meticulous rehearsals the previous night - were all in place and waiting the pitlane to open and the arrival of the cars.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.