Chatting to Peter Windsor - Part 1

Covering Formula 1 since the 1970s Peter Windsor is one of the most knowledgeable, experienced and talented journalists in the field. He has held so many respected job titles all over the sport, but I first came to know him as F1 Racing’s Grand Prix editor and columnist. I pretty much grew up reading Windsor’s articles; he was the one that actually suggested that I set up this blog in the first place.

(c) Autoweek

I had the privilege of chatting to Peter about all things Formula 1. It was both fascinating and exciting all at the same time, listening to his views and opinions. He has witnessed the sport evolve and expand, not always for the better in his view, into its current guise and is a true, lifelong Formula 1 fan. He branded the sport currently as being “a mess”, but despite that he loves every second of it. From free practice to the race itself, it has “always been exciting.”

His career is impressively varied, which is one of the reasons why he is such a highly respected character in the Formula 1 paddock. Peter has worked at the Williams F1 Team where during his two stints with the team he held the title of Sponsorship Manager and Team Manager respectively. The iconic Ferrari team has also been his employer too, alongside TV work for Speed, F1 Digital+ and ABC. 

Quite a CV, don’t you think? Add to that a continued presence in the Formula 1 print industry and you can understand why he is one of my particular idols. AUTOSPORT, Autocar and GPWeek to name but a few distributors of his fascinating pieces, he currently writes for F1 Racing. He has had a long association with the magazine after holding their Grand Prix Editor title for over a decade. Now he fills us in with his views on the sport through his column dubbed “The Racer's Edge”, which ties in nicely with what we discussed first.

It may be a world away from what Peter was used to when starting out in the journalism world, but last year he took full advantage of the technological advancements to host a weekly web show called “The Flying Lap”. It was hugely successful, particularly for their high profile guests and involvement of the fans. It was hosted by SmibsTV but their base in Canada caused some difficulties. Although not too major, Peter is now benefiting from the convenience of a London based production team. Now he has launched a new weekly show called “The Racer's Edge”, the latest episode being the seventh of the season, which ties in with his column for F1 Racing, to which the show is run in association with. Discussing why he wanted to start fresh with a brand new web show project, Peter told me “Well it was kind of the end of a chapter with The Flying Lap in terms of what we were doing there and in terms of the production team we had, they were looking at new things they wanted to do and for my part it was very interesting to look at a situation with Haymarket and F1 Racing so we just decided to do a new programme with Haymarket, it does have a new production team which is interesting and there’s lots of new technology that we are looking at and actually starting to introduce now.”

Some of that new technology comes from a brand new studio at the Haymarket offices which will be the web show’s base. Previously, it has currently been broadcast from the actual offices themselves. He revealed that they have recently been testing equipment for the show, saying “We were actually using a completely new piece of kit that we were just trying out.” He added “which is a pre-curser to a lot of other new stuff we are going to have hopefully up and running within the next four weeks or so in the new studio.” The new studio will certainly enable Peter to expand the show through special guests and giving it a real base, but he also knows that the beauty of hosting a web show is that it’s so easy to call someone up on Skype and chat to them live or pre-recorded. He said that the “great thing about” The Racer's Edge is that he can “take advantage of all the modern technology” available that then enables him to “talk to people all over the world.” Giving an example of this, he said “If I want to talk to Dan Gurney in California on his birthday I can do it via an online connection so there is so many ways we can do it.”

(c) TheFlyingLap

The show is produced by KnockoutTV and whilst the show may look seamless when viewing, there are actually a fair few production staff behind the scenes. However Peter notes that one of the beauties of broadcasting over the Internet is the low head count, citing a maximum of maybe “three or four” people on the production side of things. He also said “If I’m on the road and I want to do a show in the middle of nowhere, which I have done a number of times, we need one person back at base looking at that so it’s very efficient in terms of headcount relative to network television."

The show is also free to air. Formula 1 viewers were somewhat outraged by the announcement of the UK’s coverage moving to pay-to-view TV on Sky, a trend that has been followed in other countries too. Thanks to the efficiency and low cost measures of hosting a web show, Peter’s show is streamed live and crucially free for all fans to see. Discussing with me the basics of the web show, for those of you who have not had a look, he said “It’s free to air and anybody with an Internet connection can watch it.” He added that even without a connection, you can actually download the show offline to watch as well. “In fact you can watch it offline as well so you don’t even need an Internet connection in that sense, you can download it and watch it.” Peter then gave me a little teaser of what’s to come, saying that downloading The Racer's Edge will be even faster as he will welcome along a new partner to coincide with the launch of the new studio. He revealed “Relatively soon, about concurrent with the launch of the new studio were going to be in and all our new equipment, we are going to be announcing a major new deal for downloads with the show that will be state of the art, very fast download for both video and audio.” He said that the one hour show “should be able to” be downloaded ‘in less than 5 minutes’, a very impressive and “game-changing” addition for Peter.

Discussing the show further, he shared with me one of the main reasons he loves to broadcast live, the fans. “It is a weekly show and it is something that is available in every region in the world, unlike a lot of motor- racing coverage these days and the reason we do it live is because I like to share it with the fans and give them an opportunity to take part in the show with questions and comments which we do via Twitter with the hash tag (#trelive).” With the show now being live streamed on YouTube, it gives fans a wide range of ways to watch The Racer's Edge. If you miss it live then the show is also uploaded to his YouTube channel, http://youtube.com/PeterWindsor , where more and more content is being added. “There is a lot of fun and interesting video on that channel, we are adding new content every week and it kind of reflects our view of motorsport and our love of motorsport over the years.

(c) Peter Windsor

Peter also revealed that some shows will be more subject- specific. “Some weeks we will be quite specific about it being a technology show and other weeks we will be looking at motor racing through the eyes of an experienced, interesting person that perhaps isn’t in the public eye.” That’s one of the things Peter loves to do, chat to people that are perhaps more unknown or work behind the scenes in the world of Formula 1. “I love doing that, I love working with great racing people with great racing brains, be they famous or not.”

Alongside his F1 Racing and The Racer's Edge commitments, Peter is a busy bloke. He has so far travelled to the 2013 Formula 1 season opener in Australia where he watched Kimi Raikkonen drive to victory as well as the highly controversial Malaysian Grand Prix, the aftermath of that now historic race being the topic of his latest column. Looking to the future, he admits that he has “lots of great stuff planned for this year” including trips to the Philippines and Italy. He will be travelling east to host a Lotus F1 Team roadshow for five days and will visit Pirelli, the Lorenzo Bandini Trophy and the Ferrari museum on his trip to Italy.

Peter is also enjoying the freedom of choosing which races to go to. In the next few months he will be paddock-side for the Spanish Grand Prix, as well as going to the Monaco Grand Prix and British Grand Prix. The Goodwood Festival of Speed is also on the agenda; an enviable list for any racing fan. He admitted “my life is delicious really, I have a lovely balance between Formula 1 and doing as many races as I want to do and like doing at circuits, I enjoy balanced with all the other great things in motor racing.”

Heritage is something that is important to Mr Windsor. After being a Formula 1 fan since a very young age, he believes that we should always respect the past as well as concentrating on the present and future. There should be a balance. “I firmly believe that the heritage of our sport is just as important as the present, which is just as important as the future, and I think it’s important to keep that balance and to make sure that we are constantly looking back as well as forwards. This is so we can learn and we can show our respect for those that without whom we wouldn’t be doing what we are doing in first place, so for me my life is very much a balance between those three things.”

This is just the start of my hugely fascinating the chat with Peter, someone I have looked up to since I started writing and blogging back in 2011. Part 1 has introduced a new chapter in his life with The Racer's Edge; stay tuned for part 2 where we will be discussing the talking points from the 2013 season so far.

(c) ESPN

Peter’s weekly F1 chat show “The Racer's Edge” is in association with F1 Racing Magazine. It is broadcast every Wednesday, unless specified otherwise, live on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/peterwindsor ) or on his very own blog (http://peterwindsor.com/category/the-racers-edge/ ). The shows are also available on-demand so you can watch them whenever you want, even without an internet connection by downloading it to your computer.

From May onwards the show will be live from its very own dedicated studio at Haymarket Publishing in Teddington. The show features a number of guests, with series regulars including Craig Scarborough, Rob Wilson, Enrique Scalabroni and of course the journalists at F1 Racing Magazine. Fans can get involved in the show by sending in questions or comments on Twitter with the hash tag #trelive or on the web show’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/theracersedgetv ).

Follow Peter Windsor on Twitter for latest updates on the show, his stories from the F1 paddock and own thoughts on all things motorsport (https://twitter.com/PeterDWindsor ). 

Sub edited: Daniel Puddicombe and Trent Price