12 January 2024 , 20:10
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Former Haas driver Romain Grosjean gave the seal of approval to the team's new boss Ayao Komatsu.
But the Frenchman has also warned his former Formula 1 colleague that leading the team will be a "huge challenge". Komatsu has been promoted to team principal following the surprise axing of popular chief Guenther Steiner.
The 58-year-old has led the Haas team since its inception, having first pitched the idea to Gene Haas who provided funding. But the American businessman put all sentiment aside as he decided a change at the top was required.
Komatsu was among the original staff at the team, joining in 2016 - Haas' first season on the grid. The Japanese engineer had followed Grosjean to the newly-created team, having worked with the French driver at Renault.
They worked together until 2020, when Grosjean left Haas and F1 after miraculously surviving a horror crash in Bahrain. Komatsu remained as one of Steiner's top lieutenants and has now stepped up to replace the departed chief.
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Grosjean is delighted for his friend and former colleague and hopes he succeeds in the role. "I'm very happy for Komatsu, first of all - he's a very good friend of mine. I've competed at every one of my 181 grands prix in Formula 1 with him working on my car somehow," he said.
"His kids are the same age as my kids, so we've been very good friends and I'm excited for him. It's a huge challenge in front of him, so I'm excited for him. I wish Guenther all the best in his next chapter. He's definitely a man that's got a lot of ideas and things to do, but for me the main thing is very happy for Ayao."
Grosjean is correct in his assessment of the size of the task facing Komatsu in his first experience of leading a Grand Prix team. Haas finished rock bottom of the 2023 constructors' standings, despite hopes of improvement following a major cash influx from main sponsors MoneyGram.
Haas cannot pretend to have as vastly smaller budget compared to other teams on the grid, and the owner admits that. In his view, the cash they have was wasted under Steiner's leadership. "We spend a lot of money. We haven't exceeded the cap but we're pretty darn close to it. I just don't think we're doing a very good job of spending it in the most effective way," he said. "That's one of the reasons we have survived, because we are so conscious of how we spend money.
"Being efficient at what we do is going to make sure we survive in this series. We're one of the longest surviving teams - [other new teams] have had the tendency to spend all their money in the first few years and then they go out of business. We survived for eight years and we're not in a situation where we are going to go out of business. But I certainly want to be able to survive for the next 10 years."