New Haas boss ‘not trying to be Guenther Steiner’

Laurence Edmondson, F1 EditorJan 17, 2024, 09:00 AM ET

• Joined ESPN in 2009

• An FIA accredited F1 journalist since 2011
New Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has said he has no intention of being a like-for-like replacement for his predecessor Guenther Steiner, but added he is just as partial to using bad language.

Last week Haas announced Steiner’s contract had not been renewed for 2024, with Komatsu, the team’s former director of engineering, chosen to take over the top job.

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Speaking to media on Tuesday, Komatsu was reluctant to reveal details of his planned changes to the team’s structure as he had yet to speak with the heads of the team’s design office in Maranello, Italy.

The 47-year-old Japanese engineer has a relatively low public profile compared to Steiner, who became a superstar in the sport as a result of his straight-talking, often foul-mouthed, appearances on the Netflix docuseries ‘Drive To Survive.’

Komatsu said team owner Gene Haas had picked him precisely because he would bring a different skillset to the role of team principal.

“Of course, I’m not trying to be Guenther Steiner,” Komatsu told reporters. “He’s a very different person.

“We got on, honestly, really, really well. We respect each other, we respect each other’s positions and job roles during work and off work as well. We used to go to dinner quite a lot over a race weekend — again, not to talk about work but because we got on pretty well.

“But I’m not here to replace Guenther Steiner as a character. He’s a very different character, as you know, and he has got very different strengths and weaknesses to me.

“I’m not trying to be someone else and Gene knows that, and if Gene wanted a Guenther Steiner replacement in that way, he would have appointed somebody else.

“So I understand that Gene wants something different and I will try to be the best version of myself rather than trying to be somebody else.”

Asked if he cursed as much as Steiner, Komatsu joked: “This is not something I’m proud to say, but my language is not great! I swear way too much, but, again, I try not to do that.”

Komatsu also said he had no intention of filling the gap that will be left by Steiner in the next series of Netflix’s hit show.

“Honestly, my job role, fundamentally, is to improve the team’s competitiveness,” he added. “So I’m focused on that. So that’s my focus full stop.

“It’s not like I am going to be consciously looking for certain exposure to promote the team’s popularity, that’s not my job.

“At the end of the day, that’s somebody else’s job, as far as I’m concerned. Again, I made that clear to Gene.”

Separate interviews with Steiner and Gene Haas last week suggested their split was as a result of a difference in opinion about the team’s future.

Steiner had called for more investment in the team and its facilities, which are split between the UK, Italy and Kannapolis, North Carolina, while Haas believes more could be achieved with the existing structure.

While Komatsu, who has been at the team since its first season in 2016, admitted the setup of the team is not ideal, he believes a lot more can be achieved using its existing resources.

“If you’re setting up on a blank sheet of paper, you’re not going to set up an F1 team with two separate factories in the UK and Italy, but that’s how we started and that was very beneficial in ’16, ’17, ’18 to get off the ground,” Komatsu said.

“Then of course the landscape changes, certain regulation changes happen, so the team needs to develop. Those kind of things we need to assess continuously. But again, if you ask me is that ideal, having a UK office here and an Italy office there? No. But is that a main constraint? No. Can we do better? Absolutely yes.

“So that’s what I’m focused on. If we get [the] maximum out of how we set up, and then if then that becomes right, we cannot do anything better with the way we set up, then we can talk about that. That’s my strategy, if you like.

“But of course you’ve got to have that, not in the back of your mind, but as a strategy medium, long-term where you might want to go. But that’s not my focus at the minute.”