Team Principal, engineer and Oxford MBA, Mark Preston has led teams to five Formula E World Championship titles — across Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships — and built Super Aguri, one of Formula 1’s most improbable teams, from scratch in 100 days. Now Motorsport Director at the revived Lola Cars and Team Principal of the Lola Formula E team in partnership with Yamaha, Mark translates 30 years at the front of elite motorsport into a framework for decision-making, team-building and leading through disruption that any organisation can apply.
Mark Preston is a mechanical engineer, motorsport executive and Oxford MBA who has spent three decades operating at the pinnacle of global motorsport. As Team Principal of the DS Techeetah squad, he built and led the team that claimed five Formula E World Championship titles — a combination of Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships — competing against some of the biggest manufacturers in the world.
Mark’s career spans every tier of elite motorsport. He joined McLaren as the Principal Designer of Structures, working at the heart of one of the most data-intensive and performance-obsessed organisations in sport. He co-founded Super Aguri F1 — assembling a team from concept to race-ready in 100 days — and later led autonomous vehicle operations at StreetDrone, bringing motorsport-grade systems thinking to a deep-tech startup. His Oxford MBA gave him the frameworks to translate these experiences into business language: the economics of marginal gains, how to build cultures that perform under uncertainty, and what it actually takes to make faster, better decisions with incomplete information.
From the pitwall to the boardroom, Mark explores how the principles that drive championship performance — rapid iteration, relentless use of data, leading under pressure, and building teams that outperform their resources — apply directly to any organisation navigating competition, disruption or change.
Career
Engineering Roots — GM Holden and Arrows Grand Prix
Trained as a mechanical engineer at Monash University, Mark began his career with GM Holden in Australia before moving to the UK and joining Arrows Grand Prix (F1).
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.
McLaren Racing
Then joining McLaren Racing — 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. Mark compares and contrasts experiences working at firstly Arrows Grand Prix and then McLaren Racing providing an insight into the differences between the two organisations.
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 many of the worlds major automotive manufacturers.
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 — a combination of Drivers’ and Teams’ titles — with Jean-Éric Vergne and António Félix da Costa. He is still 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 Director of Technology Integration – Industrial Autonomy 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.
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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