16/01/2024
NEWS STORY
Ayao Komatsu is appointed new team principal at Haas as Guenther Steiner and technical director Simone Resta leave the American team.
Steiner, who in all honesty has appeared at times to be more interested in promoting himself than getting his team into shape, departs the organisation with immediate effect, having led its operations for the past decade.
Komatsu, who is promoted from his role as Director of Engineering, has been with the team since its debut season in 2016, starting as its Chief Race Engineer.
With over 20 years of F1 experience, both in engineering and management, the 47-year-old Japanese engineering graduate commenced his career in motorsport at BAR before a long tenure at Renault. He will now oversee all competition elements of the business as Team Principal, taking responsibility for the team's overall strategy, and ultimately on-track performance, with a brief to maximize the team's potential through employee empowerment and structural process and efficiency.
To further strengthen team operations off-track, and in support of Komatsu's performance-led focus as Team Principal, a European-based Chief Operating Officer will be appointed to manage all non-competition matters and departments, the role expected to be based at the team's Banbury facility.
"I'd like to start by extending my thanks to Guenther Steiner for all his hard work over the past decade and I wish him well for the future," said Gene Haas. "Moving forward as an organization it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances. In appointing Ayao as Team Principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management."
"We have had some successes," he added, "but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organization. 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. I'm looking forward to working with Ayao and fundamentally ensuring that we maximize our potential, this truly reflects my desire to compete properly in Formula 1."
"I'm naturally very excited to have the opportunity to be appointed Team Principal," said Komatsu. "Having been with the team since its track-debut back in 2016 I'm obviously passionately invested in its success in Formula 1. 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."
"We are a performance-based business," he continued. "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. We have a great team of people across Kannapolis, Banbury and Maranello and together I know we can achieve the kind of results we're capable of."
While Haas has confirmed the departure of Steiner it has yet to official comment on claims that Simone Resta has also left the team, the Italian having joined the American outfit from Ferrari in 2021 as the two companied sought to forge closer ties.
In the absence of any official comment Resta has been linked with a return to Ferrari, though he has also been linked with Sauber, with whom he previously worked during its Alfa Romeo incarnation.