Who Is New Haas F1 Team Principal? Meet Ayao Komatsu

Friday, 12 January 2024 at 23:00

Guenther Steiner's Haas departure came as a shock to many. Is there a team principal that could do a better job in the American team? Gene Haas believes it is Ayao Komatsu.

Guenther Steiner has been the team principal of the Haas F1 team since day one. The team might not even exist without him, as he was the one who assembled the squad and persuaded the team owner to invest in F1.

However, throughout his eight years with the team, there has been no significant progress and the last place in the Championship in 2023 was the last nail in the coffin.

The press release announced Ayao Komatsu as his replacement. Komatsu is a 47-year-old Japanese engineering graduate with 20 years of experience in F1.

Moreover, the Japanese engineer has been with the team since day one, so he knows it inside out. The team owner, Gene Haas, explained he wanted a team principal from within the team, as he told F1:

"We looked from within, at who had most experience. Ayao has been with the team since day one, he knows the ins and outs of it."

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Haas now joined a few other teams on the grid who decided to appoint team principals from within the team rather than searching for someone with experience outside of the team.

This is an approach that worked out very well for McLaren, for example, where Andrea Stella became the team principal, and the British team has started doing much better ever since.

The team owner also believes Komatsu is more technical and has a different approach, which is what the team needs to find more performance.

"I think Guenther had more of a human-type approach to everything with people and the way he interacted with people, he was very good at that. Ayao is very technical, he looks at things based on statistics – this is what we’re doing bad, where can we do better. It’s a different approach."

The team principal re-shuffled a lot over the course of the last few years, and there are quite a few very experienced ones waiting on the sidelines. However, Gene Haas would rather have somebody who truly knows the team.

"I really like to have people that I know, who understand the day-to-day operations, understand the people, [rather] than bringing in a stranger who is going to stir everything up and create a mess."

Now, a very challenging task awaits the new team principal. He will need to lift the American team from the bottom of the Championship while spending less money than Haas's rivals.

Will the loss of Guenther Steiner prove to be a fatal blow for the team? Or will the new team principal revitalize the Haas F1 team just like Andrea Stella did McLaren?