10 January 2024 , 18:01
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Ayao Komatsu has been given the unenviable task of picking up where one of the Formula 1 paddock's most recognisable faces and voices left off.
He is the new team principal at Haas. The man he replaces, Guenther Steiner, has been relieved of his duties after a decade in charge, having built the team from the ground up with financial backing from owner Gene Haas.
Steiner famously interviewed every member of staff before hiring them in the early days of the team. So Komatsu, who joined in 2016, will have been given the Guenther seal of approval from an early stage.
And Komatsu went on to become one of his key allies. Most recently, the 47-year-old has served as the team's director of engineering - and it his expertise in that area which appeals most to the team owner.
"Moving forward as an organization it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances," said the American businessman. "In appointing Ayao Komatsu as team principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management."
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The wording of that quote is clear - Gene Haas does not want Komatsu to be the new Steiner. He wants something different. The outgoing boss is a charming character who won an army of fans simply by showing off his personality on the Netflix Drive to Survive programme.
Following someone like that can be daunting, but Haas has chosen Komatsu for his brains rather than his charisma. At the very least, he matches Steiner for experience, having been a regular name and face in the F1 paddock for the past 20 years.
Ayao Komatsu is the new Haas F1 team principal (LAT Photo/Haas F1 Team)Komatsu got his start at British American Racing, He was a tyre engineer for the team which went on to become Honda, then Brawn GP and now the Mercedes team. But the Loughborough University-educated Japanese engineer left long before those changes to join Renault.
His first race engineer gig came in 2011 when he worked with Vitaly Petrov, before he partnered up with Romain Grosjean the following year. That relationship stuck even after Komatsu was promoted to chief engineer following a team rebrand to Lotus.
Grosjean was hired by Haas to be one of its first drivers when it entered in 2016, and Komatsu followed. He started there as trackside engineering director before later becoming one of Steiner's top lieutenants, and is now charged with leading the team into the future as it competes for the first time without its one and only team principal.