Tributes have flooded in for a ‘beautiful’ former grid girl, Kate Woodcock who died after crashing her car into a wall last week. Kate Woodcock, from Aldridge, who spent two years working as F1 champion Lewis Hamilton’s grid girl, died at the scene when her black BMW crashed near Stonnall Service Station, near Sutton Coldfield, on Thursday night. Nothing could be done to save the 30-year-old model, who has been described by friends as a ‘happy soul’.
A JustGiving page set up to raise £4,000 to help towards Ms Woodcock’s funeral costs passed its target in hours as dozens of tributes were paid. Speaking about her role as a grid girl earlier this year, Ms Woodcock told The Sun: ‘I did it because I wanted to do it and loved it.
‘It’s professional and nobody crossed the line once. More stuff probably goes on in an office. There was only me and another girl that were British. ‘I was booked because I was intelligent, well-spoken, hard-working and those elements go into the whole package. There’s a lot of work people don’t see in these roles. ‘You have to learn how to walk down the grid, how to hold your flag and the boards for the formations – there’s a lot of training that goes into it.’ Responding to her death, modelling agency SDMPE tweeted: ‘We’d like to take the time out to pay a special tribute to Kate Woodcock.