Lola’s Motorsport Director, Mark Preston, has told Motorsport Week that its objective is for their powertrain for ABT to be battling for competitive results within the first two years of its FIA Formula E journey.
Prior to the Tokyo E-Prix, Lola announced that it will be returning to top level motor racing in Formula E, and on Thursday, confirmed that it will supply powertrains to ABT from next season. Preston has a wealth of experience over many years in both Formula 1 and Formula E, and adding Lola to his CV is something that extends the list of prestigious names, such as McLaren and Arrows, that Preston has worked for.
“It’s got a lot of heritage, Lola, it’s great,” he said.
“When I first came over from Australia in 1996, I actually has 10 job interviews, one of them was Lola, one of them was McLaren and one of them was Arrows, and I ended-up working for Arrows, and funnily enough, I almost worked for Lola again in 2008, so third time lucky – fabulous.”
In what is the second regeneration of Lola after its second bankruptcy 12 years ago, the choice of entering Formula E is, as Preston explains, a very deliberate one that links closely to the values of its new owner – Till Bechtolsheimer – who is keen to promote a sustainability platform for the brand.
“Till has a very definite plan to look at three pillars of motorsport.
“So, electrification is number one, number two is hydrogen and number three is sustainable fuels and materials, and so – electrification, this is the World Championship, obviously, of electric cars, and it is the highest level of electrification, so that’s the logical place to be in that pillar of the rebirth of Lola.
“And we also see that the majority of motorsport in the future is going to go towards some level of electrification – F1’s going to 50 percent electrification in 2026 and other series like WEC are also electrified, so it makes sense to start here as the electrified pillar and then move on to the other aspects.”
With good reason, Formula E and its fans with longstanding motorsport interest are thrilled to see the brand enter the fold of the championship. The Lola name has been in motorsport for over 60 years, and has been successful in a number of different racing championships. Preston identifies the fact Lola are hugely recognisable is a huge benefit for the series.
“I think you can see from the response from the announcement in Japan, Lola’s pretty famous in Japan because of the F3000 series and all those years racing there, and obviously US and everywhere around the world, so yeah, I think it’s important to have a great brand in Formula E.”
The recognition they receive is due to, as Preston alludes to, the number of different series in which they have been involved in, so there will inevitably be hope and expectations within their FE project. Preston is aware of this and is ambitious.
“We’ve got to be running at the front, that’s the idea. It’ll take a little bit to grow up into it, but we’ve got a really experienced team and I think on paper, we’ve got every piece of the puzzle together.
“For me, as long as we’re doing a great job in the first season and there’s a positive gradient to performance. then I think we’ll be happy. It’s a super-competitive series, and it does change weekend to weekend, so I hope that we’ll be up there fighting for positions potentially in the first year or two.”
Entering Formula E as a manufacturer rather than a team, Lola has chosen ABT as the team to whom they’ll be supplying their powertrains. Conversations between both parties have been ongoing for sometime, and obviously convinced ABT Cupra to ditch Mahindra in favour of them.
“So, ABT is someone we’ve known for quite a long time and Thomas [Beirmaier, ABT CEO] was saying we started talking in London last year, and I think he said to our commercial director that it was a fair way of GEN3 Evo! So we’ve been talking together for a while, and it just made sense as time went on to work together.”
Let’s not forget Lola’s entry is in an exciting collaboration with Yamaha, who are, like Lola, re-entering top level motorsport – in a four-wheel capacity – after some time away from it. Preston’s influence made the collaboration possible.
“I’ve done a lot of things in Japan such as Super Aguri and Bridgestone, and Arrows was quite involved in Japan because of Bridgestone and TWR [Tom Walkinshaw Racing], so I got to know a lot of people in Japan, and over the years, starting talking to our now-colleagues at Yamaha, and I think we brought them to New York, I think about five years ago, to have a look at Formula E, and a number of the guys were interested.
“It’s taken time over the years to then put together.
“We’ve been working together on the powertrain for, I think, 18 months or so now.”
It was reported shortly before the official announcement of their entry that Lola had already taken delivery of a GEN3 Evo car and went straight to work with it. With Lola present at races at the ABT garage now, it’s evident that work is in full swing already, and Preston aims to get the car’s wheel turned soon.
“So the target is to be on the test track in June. It has to [be soon] in order to get ready.
“As a manufacturer, you get 12 days of testing, and the doesn’t have to happen before the combined test, but it’s sort of November time, and so that’s when we’ll be in a combined test with everybody else. And then pre that, there will be the test days obviously leading up to that.”
With the work in place and their presence confirmed, Lola’s Formula E adventure looks certain to shake-up the category and bring about a refreshing addition that helps the sport grow into new markets and create more increasing interest.
