Mark Preston is a motorsport executive, leadership speaker, and strategic advisor with 30 years at the highest levels of Formula One and Formula E. He combines a mechanical engineering background with an Oxford MBA (Saïd Business School) and a track record that spans five World Championships, the co-founding of a Formula One team, and the creation of an autonomous vehicle company. He is currently Team Principal of the Lola Yamaha ABT Formula E team and CTO at DeQuorum.
Career
Engineering Roots — GM Holden & McLaren Formula One
Trained as a mechanical engineer at Monash University, Mark began his career with GM Holden in Australia before moving to the UK and joining McLaren Formula One — at the time the world’s most technically advanced racing organisation. Working across the MP4-17D and the ambitious (if ultimately unraced) MP4-18a programme, he absorbed Ron Dennis’s philosophy of making motorsport a science: replacing intuition with data, removing uncertainty, building systems that win under any conditions.
Arrows Grand Prix
Several seasons at Arrows Grand Prix spanning the A18 through A23 gave Mark a different kind of education — resource-constrained racing at the sharp end of the grid, where the margin between competing and failing is razor thin. The Arrows A23 in particular carries a remarkable legacy: it was later reborn as the Super Aguri SA05, the car that launched a new F1 team.
Co-Founder — Super Aguri F1
In 2005, Mark co-founded Super Aguri F1 alongside Honda — taking a team from concept to grid in just 100 days. The team competed from 2006 to 2008, fielding Takuma Sato on grids that included Ferrari, McLaren, and Renault. What Super Aguri demonstrated was the power of disciplined execution over resource advantage: building something remarkable from almost nothing, on a timeline that most organisations would consider impossible.
Founding Team Principal — Formula E
As one of the founding Team Principals of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, Mark was present at the creation of what became the world’s leading electric motorsport series. His Amlin Aguri entry in Season 1 laid the groundwork for a decade of involvement in the championship that would attract every major automotive manufacturer in the world.
Team Principal — DS TECHEETAH, Five World Championships
As Team Principal of DS TECHEETAH, Mark led the team to five ABB FIA Formula E World Championships — Drivers’ and Teams’ titles — with Jean-Éric Vergne and António Félix da Costa. It is the most successful Formula E team principal record in the history of the championship. The culture, systems, and leadership philosophy behind those results form the foundation of the Motorsport MBA programme.
Founder — StreetDrone (acquired by Oxa)
Alongside motorsport, Mark co-founded StreetDrone — an Oxford-based autonomous vehicle company applying motorsport’s real-time data processing and sensor philosophy to self-driving technology. StreetDrone was acquired by Oxa in September 2024. Mark served as Autonomous Vehicle Advisor at Oxa until March 2026. He also established the MobOx Foundation C.I.C. in Oxford to support mobility and technology education.
Team Principal — Lola Yamaha ABT Formula E (2024–Present)
Mark is currently Team Principal of the Lola Yamaha ABT Formula E team, leading the organisation’s return to global motorsport through a partnership with Yamaha Motor Co. — announced at the Tokyo ePrix in 2024. Initially joining as Motorsport Director at the reinvented Lola Cars, Mark was appointed Team Principal for Season 12 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. His focus is on electrification, hydrogen, sustainable materials, and the future of motorsport technology.
CTO — DeQuorum (2026–Present)
Mark is also CTO at DeQuorum, an AI-native decision systems company building technical systems for a complex world.
Education
BEng Mechanical Engineering, Monash University · MBA, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (studied concurrently with the founding of Super Aguri F1)
How Mark Can Help Your Organisation
Mark works with leadership teams, conference audiences, and boards who want to bring the precision, performance culture, and strategic clarity of elite motorsport into their organisations. Whether through a keynote, an advisory engagement, or the Motorsport MBA programme, the principles are the same: make winning a science.
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