Guenther Steiner has resigned as Team Principal of the Haas F1 Team, and Ayao Komatsu has been promoted to replace him. Following a difficult 2023 season that ended with a tenth-place result and last-place finish in the constructors' World Championship, the US-owned team revealed this unexpected development. Team owner Gene Haas decided not to extend Steiner's contract when it was due to be renewed at the conclusion of 2023. Being the third-longest-serving team principal in Formula 1, behind Christian Horner of Red Bull and Toto Wolff of Mercedes, Steiner has been in charge since the team's 2016 debut. Steiner rose to fame after appearing in the Drive To Survive series on Netflix, and he is a huge star in the sport.
There was disagreement over the team's technical course of action, and Steiner and Haas's relationship has a history of sporadic stress. In the last two races of 2023, the divide between the old and new aero packages made these disparities clear.
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F1: Ayao Komatsu Replaces Guenther Steiner as Haas Team Principal
Ever since the Haas F1 Team made its debut in 2016, Ayao Komatsu has been an essential cog in the wheel, first as Chief Race Engineer and now as Director of Engineering. Having worked as an engineer for British American Racing and Renault for a considerable amount of time before joining Haas, Komatsu boasts over twenty years of Formula 1 expertise.
As part of his new position, Komatsu is responsible for directing the team's overall strategy and, most importantly, maximising performance while racing. His job description calls on him to unleash the team's full potential by giving them greater power and by instituting systemic changes that boost efficiency.
Komatsu is intent on improving their on-track performance, while Haas is making strategic plans to hire a COO located in Europe. This executive's duties will extend beyond the realm of competition and into the administration, marketing, communications, finance, and human resources departments, among others. With this well-planned delegation of duties, the team should be able to handle both competitive and organisational matters more efficiently.
Gene Haas said: "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. 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. We have had some successes, 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."
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Komatsu said: "I'm naturally very excited to have the opportunity to be Team Principal at Haas. 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 results-based business at the end of the day, and we obviously haven't been competitive enough recently which has been a source of frustration. We have amazing support from Gene and our various partners – particularly MoneyGram, 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 reach the kind of performances we're capable of.'
In recent years, Steiner has played a major role in increasing the team's profile, thanks in large part to his performances in the highly praised documentary series "Drive to Survive," which brought him fame beyond the Formula 1 paddock. It has yet to be determined how his departure will affect Haas's sponsors, particularly Moneygram, a crucial backer.
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