MOTORSPORT: Aussie bright spark an electric world leader

Australian engineer and businessman Mark Preston is on top of the world of electric racing and in the vanguard of autonomous motoring.

Preston is team principal of Chinese-financed, French-partnered DS Techeetah, which this month won both the driver and team championships in Formula E, the five-year-old electric open-wheeler series that races on the streets of cities including New York, Paris, Rome and Hong Kong.

He's also co-founder and chief executive of British-based autonomous vehicle technology company StreetDrone, which has been working closely with Renault.

Preston, 50, spent 15 years in Formula 1 – with the late Tom Walkinshaw's Arrows team, and with McLaren, where he worked with the sport's most successful designer Adrian Newey. He also worked with a Honda-backed team founded by Japanese ex-F1 driver Aguri Suzuki.

But it is the recent dual titles in Formula E of which he is most proud, because of what he calls "the most competitive grid and determined teams", with 10 automotive manufacturers involved.

Most of the drivers have had F1 experience, while Mercedes and Porsche will join next season – starting in mid-December – with full works teams.

Preston has been in FE from the start, originally with another team associated with Aguri Suzuki, which after two seasons was acquired by China's Techeetah.

The outfit is bankrolled by Shanghai-based sports marketing giant SECA and private equity company China Media Capital. More recently, the team has entered into partnership with DS Automobiles, the premium brand of France's Groupe PSA – parent company of Citroen and Peugeot.

In a letter to DS Techeetah team members, Preston said: "I don't remember there being another series in the history of racing with such a level of drivers and constructors/teams.

"We now have 10 major automotive manufacturers in the series, with only Virgin running a customer operation courtesy of Audi and who provided us with close competition right down to the wire."

Having missed out on the team trophy by two points in the 2017-2018 season, DS Techeetah finished the latest season in mid-July with 222 points to Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler's 203 and Envision Virgin Racing's 191.

DS Techeetah's French driver Jean-Eric Vergne, an early teammate of Australia's Daniel Ricciardo in F1, took the individual crown for the second season straight.

Vergne accumulated 136 points to the 119 of Switzerland's 2015-16 champion Sebastien Buemi, driving for Nissan e.Dams, and 106 of Brazil's 2016-17 winner, Lucas Di Grassi (Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler).

German Andre Lotterer, once a Formula 3 teammate of Supercars driver James Courtney, has been Vergne's teammate at DS Techeetah but is off to Porsche next season.

Preston, originally from Geelong, did a mechanical engineering degree at Melbourne's Monash University, working with Formula Ford constructor Michael Borland on Spectrum cars while a student. Then he did time at Holden and Walkinshaw's Holden Special Vehicles, before moving to Europe in 1996.

At Arrows he rose from stress analysis engineer to head of research and development and at McLaren went from being a principal designer to head of vehicle laboratories.

Before setting up an F1 team in 100 days with Aguri Suzuki for the 2006 season he squeezed in a masters of business administration at Oxford University.

Preston said in his letter to DS Techeetah staff since the dual titles clinched in New York that he's had "a rule of thumb for driver performance that dates from my career at Spectrum with Michael Borland straight after university".

"They need to enter a series and show they are at the top of their game in season one and then dominate in the following season," Preston said.

"We won the FIA Formula E drivers' title with JEV [Vergne] last year in season four.

"To prove real longevity and to prove that the team is also not a flash in the pan you have to win a second championship, whether it be another drivers' or a constructors'/teams' title.

"And it needs to be done in short order, either the following year or the one after that.

"I am very proud of what we have achieved with this team in only two short years by winning not only another drivers' championship with JEV but also moving from runners-up in season four to constructors' champions in season five.

"What has made the last three seasons with our team the most proud for me has been starting as a new entry, winning our first race as a customer team in our first season, following that with the drivers' championship, then following that with the double titles in the third season up against the most competitive grid and determined teams in motorsport history, now as a full works team with DS Automobiles."