Komatsu: Haas Must Expand Despite Recruitment Hurdles

Haas F1 faces recruitment challenges in the UK as it strives to expand operations and improve efficiency, says director Ayao Komatsu.

Ayao Komatsu is convinced that Haas F1 needs to expand its workforce to improve operational efficiency. The director of the American team explains that recruiting is challenging due to a saturated market, but his team needs reinforcements to reduce their workload.

“We’re trying to grow, but recruitment is difficult, and it’s not easy to find good people,” said Komatsu. “But there’s no doubt we need to expand. You know, we’re below critical mass, so to speak.”

“We’re on the verge of being constantly saturated, and whatever happens, we’re completely overwhelmed. It’s not sustainable. I want this to be sustainable. We want to be able to operate, let’s say, normally, with some margin.”

“Right now, I feel there’s very, very little margin. Whenever something happens, we have to send someone from the UK. But that means the UK operation is already stretched to the limit.”

“And taking that person out means they’ll be even more stretched. It exhausts people. It really wears them down. For me, it’s not fair to ask for such extra effort, so we need to increase the size of our operations.”

Even before Cadillac’s arrival, the situation is already delicate: “I don’t know if it’s just Cadillac, but it’s hard to recruit in the UK because there’s so much competition. We do find good people for certain roles; in fact, we find excellent candidates. But some positions are really difficult to fill.”

The Japanese engineer believes that Haas’s strong results will help the team recruit, and he’s already seeing interest from professionals at top organizations: “I hope people see what we’re doing this year and realize that Haas is really serious. We’re here for the long term.”

“We are improving, and I hope our employees see this as a great opportunity to be part of the team. In fact, we are attracting people from much bigger teams like Mercedes and Red Bull.”

“We are a much smaller team, so the work is harder. There’s a lot more to do. But some things are better, aren’t they? It depends on the individual’s personality.”

“If someone just wants to be told, ‘This is your job, do it as well as you can because we are a race-winning team,’ they will choose a big team. If that’s what they enjoy, they’ll go for that.”

“But if they want to have a broader perspective or become more versatile, it depends on their personality. Again, we need to ensure we have the right personality to fit the organization.”