New Haas leader Ayao Komatsu reveals the ‘source of frustration’ he feels at the underperformance of his team
After leading Haas right from their F1 debut in 2016, Guenther Steiner got suddenly ousted following the 2023 season's disappointing results.
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When Haas ended the 2022 Formula 1 season with 37 points and an 8th spot finish on the Championship Standings, Guenther Steiner seemed visibly upset with his team. He is considered to have had quite a big influence on deciding to not renew Mick Schumacher‘s contract after the underwhelming results of ’22, and he gave the veteran driver Nico Hulkenberg a call to come join Haas beside Kevin Magnussen. But in 2023, the team reached new lows as it ended up last on the grid with only 12 points to its name.
And this time, Gene Haas–the owner of the American outfit–has been quite dissatisfied with how the results have turned out for Haas. It is believed that he had some conflict with Guenther Steiner regarding how Haas should be directed for the future seasons which resulted in the Italian engineer being suddenly ousted from the team. And in his place, Ayao Komatsu, who was formerly the Director of Trackside Engineering at Haas, has become the new Team Principal.
Not just Guenther Steiner, but Haas’ Technical Director Simone Resta has also left the team. And as the entire structure of the American outfit is currently being undone, incoming Team Leader Komatsu has given reasons for their obvious furstration.
We are a performance-based business. We obviously haven’t been competitive enough recently which has been a source of frustration for us all. We have amazing support from Gene and our various partners, and we want to mirror their enthusiasm with an improved on-track product.Ayao Komatsu said, via RacingNews365.
Ayao Komatsu and former Haas driver Romain Grosjean had been quite close
Ayao Komatsu is a seemingly unknown name for the fans of Formula 1, but he had been in the F1 world for a long time. He has been particularly close to Romain Grosjean, the French racer who used to drive for Lotus at one point in time before coming to Haas. At Lotus, he played a significant role in Grosjean getting 9 podium finishes and even attempting to win some Grands Prix towards the end of 2013. Due to his success while working at the Enstone outfit, he was promoted to Chief Race Engineer in 2015.
After 2015, Grosjean left Lotus for joining Haas, the first F1 team from the United States in 30 years. Ayao Komatsu followed suit and joined the outfit which did not debut in the pinnacle of motorsports until a year later. Komatsu was made the Chief of Trackside Engineering at Gene Haas’ team. And when Grosjean retired from Formula 1 at the end of 2020, Komatsu remained at Haas and fulfilled his role as the Trackside Engineering head at the American outfit.
Now that Guenther Steiner is out, Komatsu has a massive task in his hands. He needs to get the Haas team up and running before the 2024 F1 season so that they have much better results than what they did last year. It remains to be seen how the changes in the team structure fare for Haas–if they finally see some improvement after the disappointing years in the recent past or if they remain at the bottom of the grid for yet another year.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)