Komatsu's Vision: Uniting Haas F1's Global Team

Amidst factory coordination challenges, Haas F1’s Ayao Komatsu aims to streamline communication across borders.

Ayao Komatsu revealed that one of his first tasks when he replaced Günther Steiner as head of Haas F1 was to restore communication between the factories in England and Italy. The Japanese explained that it was necessary to review the ways of working together.

“For now, it’s about improving the car,” Komatsu stated on the Beyond the Grid podcast. “But to start with, with a factory in the UK and one in Italy, mainly between the UK and Italy, we were not functioning properly as a team—there were major communication problems.

“In Italy, there is a design office and an aerodynamics department that design the car. In the UK, there is the racing team, race engineering, and all the functionalities that allow analyzing the car’s performance. These two groups need to work together, but that wasn’t the case.”

“It’s still my main goal: to ensure these two facilities work together. It’s clear to me that we have talented people scattered all over, but they did not have an adequate framework to work together.”

“We all agree” on how to progress

But Komatsu assures that this is not a problem for the team’s operation: “Even if it’s not ideal in terms of facilities, I still see a lot of things we can improve to make it work. So far, what has happened over the last two months proves that we can do much better.”

“For now, I haven’t yet reached the limit of our organization, and we need to think about how to proceed differently. Once you know the people well, remote work, even if it’s not 100% ideal, poses no problem.”

“It’s necessary to establish the foundations of a relationship, mutual respect, mutual understanding, which we are in the process of building. I feel that this year, we are working much, much better.”

Komatsu is pleased with the team’s good reaction to his appointment as head of the structure, and he has opened up group communication, but also individual: “I am very happy with the reaction I’ve received from all team members.”

“When the news was announced, I went to talk to our managers and all team members, I conducted as many individual interviews as possible. I began trying to sit down, talk with them honestly and transparently.

“Ninety percent of the people see it as an opportunity to improve, and we all agree on how we want to improve the team, on how we want to go about it. I am simply overwhelmed by the positive support I’ve received. I’m very, very grateful.”