New Haas Team Principal's Aims To Finish 2024 In 8th Place

Thursday, 25 January 2024 at 23:00

Ayao Komatsu - the team principal of Haas, stated his goal for the 2024 season is to finish in eighth place.

Ayao Komatsu stepped into the difficult role of a team principal of the team with one of the lowest budgets on the grid with a mission of improving it to compete at least in the midfield.

The problem is Haas finished the 2023 season dead last in the Championship, and so the team now has to be super-efficient with their limited resources in order to catch up with others.

Asked what position he is aiming for in the Constructor's Championship, Ayao Komatsu told as-web.jp that finishing in eighth place would be a great result:

"You might think that's about it, but it's 8th place. We were in last place in 2023, so we have to beat the other two teams, but considering the current state of the team, we don't have the elements to win."

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The Haas F1 team's main problem has always been its limited budget. Komatsu believes he can make changes, but the improvement won't come right away.

"If we are a small team and have a smaller budget than others, and if we don't have a good structure as a team, there's no way we can compete."

Guenther Steiner seemed much more positive during one of his last interviews in the position of team principal last year. He said there was no reason why Haas wouldn't be able to compete at the top of the midfield in 2024.

However, Ayao Komatsu sees it differently and doesn't set high expectations for the upcoming season. While finishing eighth isn't his final goal for the future of the team, he suggested starting from scratch in 2024 will be challenging.

"We have no intention of staying in 8th place in the future, but this is a year of rebuilding. Gunther, who had been with us since we started the team, has left, so this will be a restart from scratch and the first step toward competing in the midfield in the future."