Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu revealed that communication was the biggest change during the 2024 F1 season. The Japanese believes that the united team work helped further.
Komatsu has taken over the role from Günther Steiner before the 2024 season. 12 months later, he is looking at a successful year, where the team extracted a lot of performance, resulting in a P7 finish.
In 2025, Haas will have a complete new line-up, as Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen left the team. Former Alpine driver Esteban Ocon and Ferrari’s super talent Oliver Bearman take over.
Komatsu: Communication promotion helped with getting Haas F1 upgrades to work in 2024
Speaking to Planet F1 about his first year as Haas’s team principal, Komatsu and revealed that communication was a big change within the team. He added the challenge of working from two different locations at once.
“Communication,” he said. “Work as a team, work as one team.
“As everyone knows, we have two different sides, UK and Italy. So that itself is a challenge.
“I believe, as long as we have the right structure inside the company, that bridges Italy and the UK. As long as we promote communications, transparency, and then a no-blame culture, I believe there’s nothing stopping us working together.”
Upgrades
In recent years, Haas had a slightly different development path. The car was pretty quick in the first few races with upgrades being developed in the late stage of the season. With VF-24, the American team made it slightly different, as it understood the car from the get-go.
“Honestly, if we weren’t working together, I wouldn’t think that those upgrades we put on the car would have worked,” Komatsu believes.
“So that’s just proof that we can work together, and then that will translate into sporting results.
“In terms of the mood in the team, of course, sporting results help, but just the fact that I think – I like to think – everyone’s more informed about what we’re doing, how we’re going about things, changes in the company, what’s the future outlook for this year – or next race, next year, three years down the line, five years down the line – I just try to be as inclusive as possible.”
Communication was a weakness that Komatsu wanted to address
Komatsu believed that communication was a weakness at Haas, which slowed down the progress in F1. So the first thing he did when becoming team principal was addressing this issue.
“If everybody understands what they’re contributing towards the sporting result because, at the end of the day when you work for an F1 team, the ultimate goal is to get the result on track,” he said.
“So it doesn’t matter if you’re a communication person or race engineer or HR, what they do every day is contributing towards the end goal.
“My philosophy is trying to make sure everyone understands that, and everyone can see what they do every day in how they are contributing to the end performance.
“I take you back to the communication. If you’re working together as a team, then you stand a chance of understanding what the real car issues are, right?
“But if you’re not working as a team, communicating what the real issues are, people are not working on the correct things.
“Honestly, I always thought that was the case for a long time, actually.
Changing the culture
“I think this year proved that, as long as we discuss it on the table openly, without any sense of blame culture or finger pointing in each department, what we think is the problem of the car… discuss it openly and then prioritise, then try out [solutions].
“You cannot do everything. You have to hypothesise certain things. Then you’ve got to then agree, ‘Okay, most likely, this is what we need to improve’.
“Once you’ve got the agreement, even with like a disagreement, as long as everyone knows, ‘Okay, knowing all the other assumptions and hypotheses and unknowns, this is what we’re doing’, as long as people know that and it’s a unified direction, and then also communicated globally, then it’s working.”
Komatsu experiences support from Haas F1 and learns every day
This time 12 months ago, Komatsu took over from Steiner in an unexpected call-up. However, his year-long time at Haas didn’t complicate his first year as a team principal. Komatsu says that he learns every day and that he experiences support from the team.
“I don’t know, I guess I’m more focused on team growth! So, yeah, I don’t know,” the Japanese said on his personal growth in 2024.
“I mean, I’m learning every day. The support in this team is amazing, in every corner of [every] department, so it’s been really enjoyable.
“Discovering new things every day, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
“I don’t know about growth – I haven’t really sat down and looked back on the personal side because, honestly, I’m just focused on getting results with the team. How to make the car go quicker, and how to improve the whole team’s performance.
“So I haven’t thought much about personal growth in that sense.
Listening to employees
“In terms of internally – where to make changes, how to make changes – I had a decent idea.
“But then again, the first thing I did was to speak to everyone, listen to everyone, both the UK side and Italy side.
“Then I adjusted my approach, confirmed certain things, and then the things that needed adjusting, I adjusted.
“But that was largely expected then – I always believed we had the people to improve the car during the season.
“Then we proved that – the guys actually proved that we can make the car go quicker in-season and be efficient. So that side was reasonably expected, internally.
“Externally, working with F1 and the FIA as a team principal, I don’t think it’s too different from what I expected.
“There haven’t been nasty surprises. If there’s any surprise, it’d be just a positive surprise how cooperative everyone is really.”
Komatsu doesn’t want full credit for successful 2024 season
For the successful turn-around, Komatsu is being praised the most, especially since it was his first year in charge. But he is not willing to take full credits, as all the success came from good team work.
”Honestly, it’s about the team,” he said. “When it becomes something about you as an individual, I think then it fails, because it should be about the team.
“Largely, compared to last year [2023], we’ve got the same people and roughly the same number of people.
“So, fundamentally, the resource itself for this year’s [2024] result hasn’t changed, but it’s a matter of restructuring to promote communications, and trying to bring in that culture that we got to work as a team.
“What do we need to do to work as a team? Common goal, common objective, strategy, communication, etc.
“So all that, let’s say, soft side is what we focused on, or what I focused on and then that’s translating to the result.
“But, if we talk about me, I’m only as good as the people in the team, right? So my job is to try to get the best out of people, to provide the environment, facilitate everyone’s needs, and try to listen to people, that’s what I’ve been trying to do. It’s a huge team effort.
“It’s not for me to judge, I don’t think, to be honest.
“I always thought we have got the people to do it, and it was a matter of putting it together and sending the right message and right communication, clarity in terms of strategy, etc. – all the things I’ve been talking about.
“It’s really believing in people, listening to people, and then that’s the result. It’s not about how much of it is me or somebody else — it’s about the team, really.”
