In a roundabout way, Ayao Komatsu can trace his Formula One career back to Beethoven.
Long before the Tokyo native left Japan to pursue a career in a sport dominated by Europeans, Komatsu’s father, Yuichiro, was blazing a unique trail of his own, having taught himself German in order to become a leading scholar on one of the world’s greatest composers.
“It just goes to show that if you got, let’s say, determination, you can pretty much do anything,” says Komatsu, 48.
So when Komatsu, who entered his teens just as F1 was booming in Japan, was told to give up his motorsports dream, go to college in Japan and get a “regular” job, he didn’t have to look far to find inspiration. His parents, he says, were the only people who told him to go for it.
Their confidence paid off.
Komatsu enrolled at Loughborough University in England when he was 18 years old to study automotive engineering, a specialty of the school. After earning his degree, he landed his first job in F1 in 2003 with British American Racing, which used Honda engines and employed Japanese driver Takuma Sato, with whom he had previously worked with in British F3. His career then took him to Renault (which later became Lotus) where he worked his way up to the position of chief race engineer.
Now, Komatsu is entering his first season as a team principal, having taken over the top job at Haas F1 Team in January after joining the upstart American outfit in 2016.
Komatsu’s next task won’t be an easy one.
Haas has finished last among F1’s 10 constructors in two of the past three years and has yet to put a driver on the podium since it started competing at the pinnacle of motorsports.
Team owner Gene Haas said in January the decision to part ways with Guenther Steiner, who had been one of the biggest names in the F1 paddock due to his colorful interviews on Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” series, came down to the team’s poor performance.
Improvement this year — Komatsu says Haas is targeting eighth in the championship — will likely hinge on whether the team can fix the car’s tire degradation issues, which often turned promising qualifying sessions into forgettable races in 2023. Komatsu says testing late last month in Bahrain showed some promise.
“I wouldn’t say it’s fixed. It’s something we totally focused on understanding, improving it,” Komatsu says. “If you look at the rest of the preseason testing from last week I think you can see that we’ve definitely made an improvement from last year.”
But there are no miracles in a sport where the stopwatch doesn’t lie, and Komatsu knows that the road toward improvement is one without any shortcuts.
“Honestly we are working much better as a team in the sense of having a clear goal and moving as one,” he says. “All of us know that there’s a huge mountain to climb but as a base to start this season with, we are where we expected to be.”
Working in the Japanese engineer’s favor is one of the most experienced driver lineups on the grid, with Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen combining for 366 races between them. Having that level of experience can pay off in battles on the track, but in what’s essentially a high-stakes engineering competition, the feedback the drivers give is also a massive benefit when it comes to developing the car throughout the season.
“Nico’s got a very good feel for the car and he’s able to communicate that in ways that engineers can understand. So we can develop the car based on Nico’s feedback, and he rarely makes mistakes,” Komatsu says.
While Japan has a long history in F1, with numerous drivers and manufacturers, particularly Honda, having left their mark on the sport, Komatsu is the first Japanese to be named team principal at a non-Japanese team. But as he attempts to bring Haas toward the front of the grid, Komatsu says he hasn’t given that much thought.
“In a way I'm not too hung up on my nationality,” Komatsu says. “Like, of course, I'm Japanese. You know, I was born in Japan, I was raised in Japan through 18 years of age, but I wanted to do something international. So what I enjoy about Formula One is the fact that it's multinational, international.”
Still, if his journey inspires others to think about their own dreams, Komatsu is more than happy to offer some words of advice.
“If you don't try, for sure you're not gonna get it,” he says. “So the fact that I'm the first ... Japanese team principal, if that fact gives people the courage or bravery to say like, ‘Okay, if he can do that, anybody can do that. I can go out and do it,’ Then that'd be a good positive message.”
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