Formula One Special Report: Peter Windsor talks about team USF1
Peter Windsor talked about team USF1 in an exclusive interview on Formula One’s website. He is the Sporting Director of team USF1 and a former Formula One journalist reporter. The British reporter was raised in Australia and now resides in London and Sydney. He has had quite a history in the Formula One. The 58 year old was a part of Williams and Ferrari between the late 80’s and early 90’s, and won five awards for writing. Peter started most of his television work with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. He was a part of Sky Sports and FSN’s Formula One coverage. Windsor went through a tough time after he was involved in a car accident when he was riding with Frank Williams in Southern France and caused him minor injuries while the person driving the car paralysed.
The British had an extensive interview on the website but the highlight of the conversation was the question that “Lotus have built what looks like a strong team, and they were granted their entry 15 September 2009. USF1 was awarded its entry three months earlier, on 12 June. What exactly happened?”
Windsor responded that they were awarded an entry in June for an FIA championship that did not include any of the front-running teams. They were lining-up for the so-called 'breakaway' series but it wasn't until late July that the two parties - the FIA and FOTA - sat down and spoke with any sort of civility and it wasn't until mid-August that the team actually signed into the single-championship Concorde Agreement. Until that time, they did not have the rights to exist as a company, have a website, trade or hire people. As far as he knows, Lotus was very well prepared before then- and their design team was a harmonious unit, well used to working under pressure and familiar with one another. He believed that if he is not mistaken, Mike Gascoyne's excellent Cologne-based team was born during his time at Toyota. That is a very different kind of operation a car being designed in an F1-friendly environment for a build-group in the UK is a different experience. They never considered that sort of set-up.
He believes that they were trying something completely different, not only in the context of F1 today but within the context of the history of F1. They were designing and building a car outside Europe - and doing it in-house as well. Everyone was saying Europe was the only place to do up a car until then and felt with the extensive technology infrastructure that now exists on the east coast of the States that the time had finally arrived when an F1 car can be designed and built in the United States. Peter was aware of the fact that it was never going to happen overnight, however, if a well-oiled Mike Gascoyne operation only just made Bahrain, they were always going to need more time to do the same thing around a brand new project in the States. It was not just Mike, who took the Euro third-party route. The other two new teams also used a third-party design and build facility – which Windsor believed was strictly, not the F1, is about.
“As I say, we never even contemplated doing that. Ken Anderson first came to me with the USF1 idea in the wake of David Richards failing to take his place on the grid as the 12th team”, he said. Peter thinks that David pulled out because he wanted McLaren to build his cars. The origin of team USF1, therefore, was completely in the other direction – that meant they had to do their own car. It was clear, following David's problems, that this was F1's future and every team was going to design and build its own cars, so that was their model since the beginning with the proviso that they wanted to make their technology something they could talk about and sell – meaning something unique and fun.
Spectators believe Peter has something big in mind and are anxious to find out what will become of his work in the near future.
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