It’s the beginning of a new chapter for Haas in 2024, with Ayao Komatsu replacing Guenther Steiner as team boss.
The Japanese-born engineer has been a leading player with the Haas organisation ever since their arrival into F1, with Komatsu working closely alongside Guenther Steiner throughout.
With Steiner and Haas divorcing over the winter, it’s Komatsu who steps forward into the limelight for the first time – the latest iteration of the engineer-turned-team-boss that is slowly becoming de rigeur in recent years.
Having stepped into Steiner’s empty shoes just six weeks ago, Komatsu has had a busy time since.
Accustomed to being a familiar but background character, Komatsu’s promotion means he’s suddenly one of the 10 main players who face the intense scrutiny and unrelenting pressure that the role of a modern F1 team entails.
Having worked in F1 for 20 years – Komatsu has had stints with BAR, Renault (and later Lotus) before moving to Haas – the move from being a (major) cog in the machinery of a team to becoming the driving force is a daunting one, regardless of experience.
But there’s no sign that Komatsu is feeling out of his depth as he engaged with the media throughout the three-day Bahrain test. While perhaps not quite yet at ease being out front and centre for the likes of the main press conference, Komatsu is verbose and engaging as he talk to gathered members of the print media through how testing has gone for Haas at the end of the three days on Friday.
Would that ease and comfort remain when I sat down opposite him afterward to talk about himself and the team, rather than the car? I certainly hoped it would, as our exclusive interview began on the terrace of Haas’ hospitality on the Friday evening of the test.
After all, Komatsu’s predecessor was one of the media darlings of the paddock – always chatty, never shy of expressing an opinion.
Having never spoken to each other before, I had no idea what to expect as we began our chat, where the obvious opener was to ask how he’s found his first few weeks as an F1 team boss.
“To be honest, I don’t know what I expected, I guess,” he said.
“I still don’t know what I don’t know, right? But, in terms of what we need to do to the team to improve, I had some ideas. So, in that aspect, I’m just getting on with it.”
I asked him when, over the winter, he first had inkling things might be happening behind the scenes between Steiner and Haas, and how the job offer came about – presumably the offer came directly from Gene Haas [team owner].
“Of course, it’s Gene. This is Gene’s team,” he replies, perhaps a little tersely.
“He decided to go in that way, and then he asked me, so I thought about it. And I said, ‘Yes, I’m definitely happy to give it a go’.”
Having got the offer from Haas to step up to assume responsibility for pretty much everything, was that a decision Komatsu took a while to ponder over? After all, that aforementioned cog-to-boss step hasn’t worked out for everyone – a recent example being Mattia Binotto’s decades-long Ferrari tenure ending after a messy 2022.
“It’s not like something you can think lightly [of],” Komatsu said.
“It’s a very huge responsibility, to run the team on behalf of Gene. Huge. At the same time, I was very grateful that I was given the opportunity because I feel… I’ve been with the team since 2016.
“I know many people, and I know the various departments – how they function together, or not, together. Throughout the various discussions we had over the years, we had ideas on how to improve the team. So now, we just get on with implementing those changes.”
Having finished 10th in last year’s championship, Haas almost feels like a team that’s back where it started when it entered the sport in 2016.
Slumping to the back wasn’t part of the game plan, and the ousted Steiner has been more opinionated about the racing model the Haas team has utilised over the years.
Picking things up and ‘starting fresh’ with the eyes of someone who has seen every twist and turn of Steiner’s attempts, how does Komatsu feel about the intervening years since 2016? Has the team made the best of what it’s had available to it?
“If it was a team that maximised every opportunity, then Gene wouldn’t have done what he did. So no, of course not,” he replies.
“2016-2018, I think we made decent improvements and ’18 was still the most successful year for Haas F1 history. But, in ’19, that was the turning point where we lost the way in terms of the development of the car. So we haven’t really recovered from that.
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