Sayonara, then, to the grid girls, who have gone the same way as refuelling stops, driver medals and double-points races, consigned to the dustbin of Formula One ideas that once masqueraded as progress.

A penny for the thoughts of Lewis Hamilton, who last year took one look at the massed ranks of male journalists in Melbourne to declare that there needed to be “more ladies” in the paddock. “Too many dudes,” he lamented.

Alas, Britain’s four-time world champion, whose last sally into gender politics was to say of his nephew at Christmas that “boys don’t wear dresses”, has since been about as voluble as a Benedictine monk.

The decision by F1 owners Liberty Media to dispense with these women, on grounds that the custom “does not resonate with our brand values”, will deprive Sebastian Vettel of much comic ammunition.

Glimpsing some Russian grid girls in 2015, standing at the back of the Sochi...