Director of Engineering Ayao Komatsu has taken over as Team Principal of the Haas Formula One Team following the departure of Guenther Steiner.
Since the American team joined Formula One in 2016, Guenther Steiner has served as team leader. The Italian became well-known in the sport after landing a lead part in Netflix’s Drive To Survive series. He was the third-longest serving team principal in Formula One, behind Christian Horner of Red Bull and Toto Wolff of Mercedes.
Under his leadership, the team experienced real high moments, such as points on their debut in Australia in 2016, their first-ever pole position in Brazil the previous year, and a fifth-place finish in the constructors’ championship in 2018.
But it was a difficult year for them last year. Haas struggled to convert their one-lap qualification performance into a race pace that would score points on Sunday, and as a result, they placed last in the constructors’ championship, down two spots from the previous year. After discussions between Guenther Steiner and owner Gene Haas over the winter, it was decided that Guenther Steiner would leave the organisation with immediate effect.
His substitute Since Haas’s 2016 Formula One debut, Komatsu, 47, has been employed by the company. He began as Chief Race Engineer and eventually became Director of Engineering.
In addition to his extensive tenure at Renault before to joining Haas, he has over 20 years of expertise in Formula 1, having worked in engineering and managerial capacities with British American Racing.
According to Haas, Komatsu will be in charge after Guenther Steiner of the group’s overarching plan and, eventually, its performance on track. The group’s goal is to maximize its potential through employee empowerment, efficient structure procedures, and effective teamwork.
Haas intends to hire a Chief Operating Officer with a base in Europe to oversee all non-competition matters and divisions, including HR, admin, finance, marketing, and communications, while Komatsu concentrates on achieving its on-track performance.
“To begin with, I would like to thank Guenther Steiner for all of his hard work over the past ten years and I wish him well for the future,” owner Gene Haas stated.
As a company, it was obvious that we had to raise our on-track results going forward. Ayao Komatsu’s appointment as Team Principal reflects the basic engineering focus of our management.
“We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organization. We need to be efficient with the resources we have but improving our design and engineering capability is key to our success as a team.
“I’m looking forward to working with Ayao and fundamentally ensuring that we maximize our potential – this truly reflects my desire to compete properly in Formula 1.”
Komatsu said: “I’m naturally very excited to have the opportunity to be Team Principal at Haas. Having been with the team since its track-debut back in 2016 I’m obviously passionately invested in its success in Formula 1. I’m looking forward to leading our program and the various competitive operations internally to ensure we can build a structure that produces improved on-track performances.
“We are a results-based business at the end of the day, and we obviously haven’t been competitive enough recently which has been a source of frustration.
“We have amazing support from Gene and our various partners – particularly MoneyGram, and we want to mirror their enthusiasm with an improved on-track product. We have a great team of people across Kannapolis, Banbury and Maranello and together I know we can reach the kind of performances we’re capable of.”
