The first earth shattering news of 2024 hit the F1 airways today when Haas F1 team announced that team principal Guenther Steiner will be leaving Haas F1 team. The decision appears to be effective immediately leaving some fans in heartbreak. Director of Engineering Ayao Komatsu will step up to replace Steiner for the 2024 campaign.
Steiner has lead the Haas F1 team since 2016. The team has face many woes over the years. Generally Haas has never bee a championship contender but the team has found a presence as a mid pack contender over the years. However, in 2023 the tea finished dead last which raised questions as to whether Steiner was still the man for the job. Haas wasted no time with his replacement. We assume this was a mutually beneficial move for the parties involved.
Words from Gene Haas, Haas Team owner
Owner Gene Haas said: “I’d like to start by extending my thanks to Guenther Steiner for all his hard work over the past decade and I wish him well for the future.
“Moving forward as an organization, it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances. In appointing Ayao Komatsu as Team Principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management.
We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organization. We need to be efficient with the resources we have but improving our design and engineering capability is key to our success as a team.
I’m looking forward to working with Ayao and fundamentally ensuring that we maximize our potential – this truly reflects my desire to compete properly in Formula 1.”
“I’m naturally very excited to have the opportunity to be Team Principal at Haas. Having been with the team since its track-debut back in 2016 I’m obviously passionately invested in its success in Formula 1. I’m looking forward to leading our program and the various competitive operations internally to ensure we can build a structure that produces improved on-track performances.
We are a results-based business at the end of the day, and we obviously haven’t been competitive enough recently which has been a source of frustration…We have amazing support from Gene and our various partners – particularly MoneyGram, and we want to mirror their enthusiasm with an improved on-track product. We have a great team of people across Kannapolis, Banbury and Maranello and together I know we can reach the kind of performances we’re capable of.”