Haas boss hits out at previous era ‘excuse’ mentality in ‘never working properly’ verdict

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu.

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu saw “excuses” handicapping the team before his time in the role, meaning it “never” functioned properly.

Haas arrived on the Formula 1 grid back in 2016, the foundations for their entry and technical partnerships with Ferrari and Dallara all brought together by Guenther Steiner, who served as team boss until the end of 2023, until owner Gene Haas made the call to replace him as team principal with Komatsu, their long-serving trackside engineering director.

‘Excuses’ for poor performance in past Haas era

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Steiner’s exit came after an underwhelming 2023 season for Haas, who scored just 12 points and propped up the Constructors’ Championship, their momentum built since that punishing 2021 campaign fizzling out.

And Komatsu said that Gene Haas had become “frustrated” over the years due to an “excuse” being put forward for poor performance on multiple occasions.

“The reason [Gene] got frustrated over the years, for some there is an excuse like COVID [in 2020], but last year, there was no excuse,” Komatsu told RacingNews365.

“There was always some excuse like: ‘Okay, this year we are not developing because we are just preparing for next year.

“For 2023, there is no excuse and then what happened in 2023 is because we didn’t fundamentally address the issues of 2019.

“That is people being in denial, pointing the finger at certain things.”

And that, Komatsu explains, meant: “We were never working properly as a team, that was totally clear.”

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However, Komatsu has “100 per cent” belief that Haas can respond, with Gene Haas’ commitment to his F1 team “completely long-term”, and indeed, Haas have made major strides in their recovery mission already in F1 2024 with 27 points on the board, lifting them to P7 in the current Constructors’ standings.

And Haas will welcome a new driver pairing for F1 2025, with Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman to step up after numerous FP1 outings with Haas, while he will be partnered by Esteban Ocon, who makes the move from Alpine.

Ocon was impressed by the plans put forward to him by Komatsu, with talks starting all the way back in mid-2023.

“Conversations started quite a long time ago, already mid-season of ’23, that’s really when things started,” Ocon told media including PlanetF1.com.

“But Ayao really convinced me with his words. He’s a person that has a lot of experience in Formula 1 that I’ve been working… On my first steps into Formula 1 as well, when I was testing for the first time 10 years ago, and I even know him from a lot longer than that.

“When we sat down for the first time, he explained [to] me about his plans going forward, which were very clear, they have a clear target, which is still in humble terms, not showing off, which is what I like as well.

“But they have very clear plans of improving where they are from and they’re already starting that. As you can see, this year they’ve been clearly improving their performance, the car itself, and the plans are obviously quite big and quite impressive looking forward.

“So it was a decision that I took that I’m very happy with and I’m very excited, it’s a great challenge, a new adventure for me after five years with this team [Alpine]. And I look forward to finish this season on a high as best as I can for the team and start the collaboration next year.”

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