After a little over two decades in Formula One, Japanese engineer Ayao Komatsu will now get a chance to run his own team.
The Haas F1 team on Wednesday announced the departure of Guenther Steiner, the popular, yet foul-mouthed, team principal whose colorful language and heart-on-his-sleeve personality made him one of the stars of Netflix's "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" series.
"Moving forward as an organization it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances. In appointing Ayao Komatsu as Team Principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management,” Haas owner Gene Haas said in a statement posted on the team's website.
Komatsu, who cuts a quieter figure compared with the bombastic Italian American, faces a tall order in turning around the fortunes of a team that has been stuck in neutral for most of its eight seasons in F1.
Haas has finished last in the constructors' standings in two of the past three seasons, including in 2023 when the team failed to score points at any of the final seven races. Aside from a surprising fifth-place finish in 2018, the Ferrari-powered team has never finished higher than eighth over the course of a season, and has yet to put a driver on the podium.
“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," Komatsu said in the statement. “We are a performance-based business. We obviously haven’t been competitive enough recently which has been a source of frustration for us all."
Komatsu, who has been with Haas since the team debuted in 2016, moves up to the top job from his previous position as director of engineering. The 47-year-old won't be expected to completely fill Steiner's shoes, as the team announced a media-facing team leader will be hired to allow Komatsu to focus on the technical side of the team's operations. Steiner's popularity on the Netflix show gave Haas more exposure than a typical constructor at the back of the grid, and it remains to be seen how the team's sponsors will react to the changing of the guard.
Haas' struggles were particularly evident in the late stages of the 2023 season. The team was in eighth place after the first 10 races of the season, largely on the strength of Nico Hulkenberg's seventh in Australia, before ceding positions to Yuki Tsunoda's Alpha Tauri and Alfa Romeo in the latter portions of the season.
The car continued to perform well over one lap in Saturday qualifying — Hulkenberg posted the second-fastest time at the Canadian Grand Prix in June — but struggled with tire degradation over the course of a race.
Komatsu noted as much ahead of his home Japanese Grand Prix in September as he spoke about the 2023 car's struggles.
"When you’ve got brand new tires, extra grip, you can mask lots of weakness of the car, whereas when you do a long run in a race stint, those little weaknesses you can mask in qualifying, those get completely exposed – and it’s cumulative," he said. "I think the concept of the car we’ve got, we’ve been trying to develop it, trying to make it better but we haven’t been really finding the solution. So yeah, that’s why it’s been quite difficult."
The Tokyo native does have one thing working in his favor: experience. Komatsu joined British American Racing in 2003 before a lengthy tenure with Enstone, England-based Renault (which later became Lotus and is now known as Alpine.) He started in the role of chief race engineer when he joined Haas.
Komatsu also has one of the most experienced driver lineups on the grid, with Kevin Magnussen and Hulkenberg combining for 366 Grands Prix between them, meaning driver feedback should continue to be a strength. That'll take on a new level of importance as F1 heads toward sweeping regulation changes ahead of the 2026 season that could provide opportunities for current backmarkers like Haas to get their initial concepts right and speed toward the front of the grid.
“We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organization," owner Haas said. "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."
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