Peter Windsor seems like the perfect candidate for a Motorsport News readers’ Q&A. In a motor racing career spanning five decades, he is a treasure trove of knowledge, stories and memories of Formula 1. Enthusiast, journalist, driver manager, sponsorship manager, team manager and TV host, it’s no surprise Windsor was asked to help curate the brand-new Formula 1 Exhibition that celebrates F1’s past.
Different generations of fan will remember Windsor in different guises across his years working in Formula 1. From his groundbreaking F1 reports in Autocar, to his role as manager for Carlos Reutemann and Nigel Mansell, Windsor has been at the forefront of the sport.
“The British press was against Mansell due to class”
Peter Windsor
He was in the passenger seat when Frank Williams had his life-changing road car accident outside Paul Ricard in 1986, worked for many years on US channel Speed TV and even attempted to launch his own team, US F1.
Younger fans might label him an ‘influencer’ as today he fronts his own YouTube channel, discussing the minutiae of racing. And while many viewers enjoy his trips down memory lane, unlike his peers he still holds a fascination for the present and is always on the lookout for the ‘next big thing’ in the junior formulae.
We meet the day before practice at this year’s Singapore Grand Prix, in a restaurant overlooking the famous Raffles Hotel. Just as we begin, Windsor suddenly hammers hard at the window. A random passer-by in a flat cap turns around. “Oh, I thought that was Adrian [Newey]!”
Forever on the lookout for anyone and anything to do with motor racing, we leave the stranger on the street to his own business, and start with the topic of Adrian Newey’s former driver, Nigel Mansell.
Question: Peter has a close connection with Nigel Mansell. Is Peter frustrated by the level of negativity that is aimed towards Mansell by the media?
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Via Instagram
Peter Windsor: “I’ve always had a close relationship with Nigel going to the back end of ’77. I was at Autocar when I got a call from someone saying they have just seen the best British driver since Jimmy Clark and I needed to go and look at him. At that point Nigel was winning the Brush Fusegear Formula Ford 1600 championship.
“I went to Thruxton for his first race in F3 in early ’78 and through Church he was just fabulous. So I went on a mission to try and get this guy into Formula 1. He had no backing and had remortgaged his house in order to finance those races in ’78. But it quickly became clear that he didn’t have a lot of support from the British press. I wouldn’t say the British public, because he was quite often getting ‘Dish of the Day’ awards from the female flag marshals at Silverstone.
“I was a kid from Australia, so I wasn’t aware of how the
