AUGUST 27, 2004

Preston leaves Williams

The BMW Williams team has lost one of its top engineers, Tim Preston, who has been in charge of test engineering in recent years. Preston is a longtime Williams man, having joined the company in 1989 when he became a member of Adrian Newey's drawing office. In 1995 he was appointed race engineer to Damon Hill and helped Hill to the World Championship in 1996. After Hill left Williams to join Arrows, Preston stayed began working with Heinz-Harald Frentzen but at the end of the year decided that he wanted do less travelling and moved to Sauber where he had the chance to become head of the test team. After two years he returned to Williams and has been involved in testing ever since, although he was on the race team for a period, trying to sort out problems.

It is unlikely that Preston will remain on the market for long as he is a highly-respected F1 engineer but it seems that the moved from Williams was a necessary step as the new technical management at the team prepares for the future.