Windsor was the man responsible for bringing Nigel Mansell's name to the motor racing world and taking Mansell right through to his 1992 F1 world championship.

On Thursday I had the opportunity to talk with Windsor who had flown in from the US GP in Texas to be the special guest at a fundraising function for Peroni on Friday night.

I asked Windsor, who at one stage managed the Ferrari F1 operation when it was based in England, what prompted him to throw his support behind the 19-year-old from Hobart?

"I thought his performance in 2018 when he scored a first and a second on the streets of Monaco in the Formula Renault Eurocup series marked him as someone who had all the ingredients to go onto F1," Windsor said.

I suggested the 13 races he contested this year had achieved limited results and it would be easy to be dismissive of his future chances, despite consistently qualifying less than a second off the pole position time in the 30-car field.

Windsor countered by saying Peroni's results were "well as expected in his first year" which was a considered opinion bearing in mind the multi-million dollar budgets of the major teams.

"When I saw Mansell racing in the first part of his career his results were nothing to get excited about but I could see he had something special apart from determination and commitment and I believe Alex has those same attributes," he added.

Windsor will continue to advise and support Peroni and when asked why he would add this commitment to an already-busy schedule the answer came as no surprise.

"I really enjoy working with young drivers who demonstrate their potential and to be able to use my many years of experience and knowledge in the hope that it will further their careers is worthwhile."

As far as the sausage kerb that was placed on the outside of the long fast final corner of the Monza circuit, to stop drivers exceeding track limits and which caused Peroni's crash, Windsor agreed with it that it was a crash waiting to happen and should never have been there.

Peroni confirmed to me that his recovery is going very well and he is looking forward to getting rid of his back brace next month.

So does he have any concerns about getting into the race car after such an horrendous crash?

"No way. I can't wait."

The Australian team of Stephen Turner (Tasmania) Heath Barry (QLD) and Kelly Thomas (WA) have come away from the Taipei International Gymkhana last weekend with second place in the doubles competition.

The two-day event was contested by representatives from 12 different Asia Pacific countries using identical left-hand drive Subaru Levorgs in both solo and doubles events.

In the solo competition teams were only given one practice run and then onto four qualifying runs with the best time counting.

Only 32 of the 36 drivers qualified with Thomas finishing Q28 and Turner Q11 and then it was onto the knockout competition. Barry was eliminated due to a wrong direction on his first run but Turner moved up to the top 16.

Turner was then eliminated on his second run with an uncharacteristic wrong direction and the news wasn't any better when the team was eliminated from the team knockout event.

It all came together in the doubles competition with Turner and Barry combining to finish on the podium much to everyone's jubilation.

All three of the team Australia members found it difficult to make the transition to left-hand drive and also the very narrow course layout with time penalties applied if course markers moved.