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Michael Preston, Williams Engineer of the Future
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Special feature

The 2022 Autosport Awards winner using Esports as a launchpad

A trail blazed in Esports has inspired a revamp of the annual prize that aims to discover the best young engineering talent. Autosport met Autosport Williams Engineer of the Future winner Michael Preston

The Williams FW44 is blasting along the pitstraight at the Red Bull Ring. After sweeping through the rapid final double right-hand sequence that ends the lap, it picks up even more speed powering past the pits and grandstands and heading up the hill to the Turn 1 right. But here, it swings wildly left and traverses the braking zone over the kerbs lining the outside of the track in a way Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi would never do. Autosport is perplexed…

“The Esports drivers can run kerbs a lot more aggressively than you would in the real world. And, aside from that, you also wouldn’t do that in a real car because you’d probably break it after 10 laps!”

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