Is there anyway to gift a pre-order to a friend

Guessing it works the same as with usual gifting process, no ?

Yep.

At the checkout, just tick the "Gift this order" box, fill out the info and finish the purchase.

Gifting restrictions apply though:
"
I cannot buy a game as a gift, why?

For security reasons we had to implement some restrictions for buying gifts with some payment methods. We know this can be an inconvenience, and we're very sorry about that.

As stated in Checkout, in order to gift games, your account needs to have purchases worth at least $10 / €9.19 / £6.69 / A$13.99 / 719.00 RUB / 55 DKK / 70 NOK / 65 SEK / 30 PLN / C$ 10 / 10 CHF made at least 3 months ago.

Unfortunately we are unable to lift this limitation. However, in some cases we might be able to help manually. Please contact us via the support form for more information.
"

Official link for the quote above

One thing to note is the the currency conversions don't match the ones given in Local Prices Update.

I'd be interested to know which conversion is definitive for the gifting threshold.