Preston is new technical director of Super Aguri

Super Aguri Honda have today announced several internal promotions in their team in order to better prepare themselves for the next season. Mark Peston thereby become the new Technical Director, Graham Taylor is Chief Race Engineer and Ben Wood is the new head of aerodynamics.

Mark Preston has accepted the position of Technical Director of the SAF1 TEAM. Mark takes up his new position with immediate effect and will continue to attend all race and test events whilst managing the Design and Research and Development departments based at the SAF1 Team factory in Leafield, UK.

Graham Taylor has been promoted from his current role of Chief Race Engineer to the newly created position of Sporting Director. In his new role Graham will be responsible for the Race and Test Team performance and all related activities. An integral part of Graham’s new position will be to ensure that the image, professionalism and development of the SAF1 TEAM is administered with an understanding of the future path and development of ‘The Race Team’. For the remainder of the 2006 season Graham will continue to oversee the Engineering department with no further personnel changes.

Further promotions within SAF1 Team include Ben Wood to the role of Head of Aerodynamics, Stephen Watt becomes Head of Electronics and Gérry Hughes commences his new role of Head of Research and Development whilst continuing his position as Race Engineer for Car Number 22 (Takuma Sato).

'I am glad that Aguri has been able to bring stability to the team and cement our future direction. It is a credit to all who have worked so hard at SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM and delivered so much over this first year of racing. Through our constant improvement we have come from approximately 7% off the pace at our first Grand Prix in Bahrain and are now within 3% of the front runners at recent races, a huge effort in anyone’s books! These internal promotions reflect the commitment to further strengthening the team’s future.”