Haas's model needs to change - Steiner Why should I care? Nobody else does when they are kicking your butt.

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emailBy Chris Medland | January 19, 2024 10:45 AM ET

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner likens competing against the other nine Formula 1 teams as “going into a gunfight with a knife” and believes that the team’s model needs to change moving forward. But as long as Haas is making money from somewhere, why should they care?

Gene Haas opted to replace Steiner with Ayao Komatsu over the winter, citing the poor results that led to the team finishing 10th in the constructors’ championship last year. While Steiner said he understands why the performances were not deemed as being satisfactory, he says the way Formula 1 has evolved meant Haas needs further investment to keep it with its rivals.

“It wasn’t going well last year, I knew that, I’m not ignorant,” Steiner told RACER. “But also from my side, what can I do to improve matters? Everybody knows what the other teams have been investing far more heavily, and we were going into a gunfight with a knife.

“F1 has changed over the past five years and it’s all going in one direction with this budget cap. People ask ‘Are you at the budget cap?’ but that doesn’t mean anything anymore. You need to be at the budget cap in CapEx (capital expenditure) and OpEx (operating expense) now, because you need to make CapEx investments to bring your OpEx down so you are efficient. That’s the only way to do it.

“This model was fantastic 10 years ago; now it is not anymore. It needs to change.”

When pushed on what he’d do at Haas if he was given freedom to make whatever changes he deems necessary, Steiner said the rest of the grid shows the direction the team now needs to take.

“I would go down the model that all the other teams are doing,” he said. “I don’t need to say any more, because everyone else is doing it. You would need to invest in infrastructure to get the best out of your OpEx cost cap money, it’s very simple. You just need to do what the other teams are doing, because everybody’s doing it.

“Like you change the car concept, when all teams need to go in one direction, you also need to do it with team structure. And you need to put investment in, because there is no weak team out there anymore.”

Steiner believes the employees at Haas do not get enough credit for the job they’ve been doing given the team’s current set-up, having reached Q3 a total of 11 times between Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.

“I think what Haas achieved last year, obviously finishing 10th is no good, but it was actually an achievement going through to Q3 more than a few times,” he said. “Now, knowing how much of a disparity there is within the infrastructure, it is quite an achievement by the team. And that’s not down to me, that’s down to the team – it shows how good they are.”

 

Not getting to say goodbye after surprise Haas departure ‘stung’ - Steiner

I found a note taped to the door when my key wouldn't work and it said we put your junk in a cardboard box and the gate guard has it.

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emailBy Chris Medland | January 15, 2024 3:30 PM ET

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said his departure came as a surprise and not getting to say goodbye in person to many of his team “stung”, as he outlined where he feels Gene Haas needs to be open to greater investment.

Haas opted not to renew Steiner’s contract during the off-season, effectively firing the team principal who had helped establish the team a decade ago. While Steiner had not been intending to leave, he said he understands that Haas gets to call the shots, even if he needs to pull his head out for a better view around him.

“It’s always a little bit of a surprise, but then at the end of the day he owns the team, he can do what he wants and it’s his decision,” Steiner said at the Autosport International Show.

“I think that [if a change is good] can only be answered in the future. I cannot say what’s happening in the future. For sure he thought that’s the way he wants to take the team forward. It’s his decision, not mine. He owns the place and if you own something you have the right to do what you want. The first clue was that instead of cash under the table like the rest of F1, we started getting our pay as money orders from Habib's” convenience store.

Steiner confirmed he hadn’t been able to say goodbye or thank you to a number of team members directly following the call from Haas between Christmas and New Year.
Last year we got a roll of toilet paper for Christmas, instead of a Christmas turkey. This year we got the paper tube the toilet paper was wrapped around and a note was taped to it saying:
Your job has just been wiped out. So long turkey!

“Yeah it stung or stunk, however you want to spell it. but in the end they all know me and they know I still appreciate what they did,” he said.

“It’s always best to say it to them as well, it would be nice to say ‘Hey guys, thanks for everything you did for the team’ because the team where we started, very small, running on adrenaline a lot of times, they did a good job. I want to say thank you to them, obviously it doesn’t make you happy not saying thank you.”

Steiner said that one area new team principal Ayao Komatsu will need help is in terms of capital expenditure, saying Haas’ rivals have started to reflect some of the changes and investments that are needed to be competitive in F1’s cost cap era.

“Since we had this model 10 years ago – when we started – Formula 1 has changed a lot,” he said. “You have seen how much Formula 1 changed after the COVID period, how much it grew, how much bigger it got, how different it got with the budget cap, how we use the budget cap to get ideas how to do things…

“If you look at the other teams, they are all gearing up – they started to gear up, some two years ago, some three years ago, some last year – so everybody is getting stronger and investing a lot in the future. Because Formula 1, I think, is on a very good path [in] where it is going at the moment, and that is what is needed to stay competitive.

“I don’t know Gene Haas’ plans for the future, he didn’t share them with me! And he doesn’t have to by the way, I want to make that clear, and I’m not really interested in it anymore! On the other side I see where other people are going, and the model we started with at the beginning I think was a very good model, but maybe it’s not time-relevant anymore. But who am I to say that? I just became the guy who got thrown out with the garbage..

“You need to invest outside of the cost cap to get the best out of the operational cost cap. I wouldn’t say it’s very complex, but you need to think about how can you get the most out of the operational cost cap money to make the car go quicker? And that is normally because you invest in something to do that, and that needs to be done. I think a lot of people picked up on that one years ago how to be efficient by spending money in capital investment and then getting the operational [cost cap] to be more efficient.”
__________________

 

And when things don't improve, Haas will just fire the guy who replaced me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘I’m not trying to be Guenther Steiner’. They fired his a** cold turkey, no warning.... and I don't want that happening to me.- Komatsu

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emailBy Chris Medland | January 17, 2024 12:05 PM ET

Once the dust settled on the shock news of Guenther Steiner’s departure from Haas — if indeed it has settled yet — the new team principal is helping clear up some of the debris left in the aftermath.

Ayao Komatsu has been tasked with proving that the current Haas model can work, or at the very least that it is operating far from its current potential and that he is the man who can get the most out of it.

As I’ve previously written, there are much bigger issues that Haas faces as a team than a simple change of team principal can overcome due to the way Formula 1 has evolved. But that doesn’t mean change can’t have a positive impact within those existing limitations.

Komatsu was willing to discuss what he thinks Haas needs to be better at when he invited media to the team’s Banbury facility in the United Kingdom this week. At the same time, he says he hasn’t got big shoes to fill, because the Japanese engineer views himself as a very different character.

“Of course, I’m not trying to be Guenther Steiner,” Komatsu said. “He’s a very different person. We got on, honestly, really, really well. We respect each other, we respect each other’s positions and job roles during work and off work as well. We used to go to dinner quite a lot as well over a race weekend — again, not to talk about work but because we got on pretty well.

“But I’m not here to replace Guenther Steiner as a character. He’s a very different character, as you know, and he has got very different strengths and weaknesses to me. I’m not trying to be someone else and Gene [Haas] knows that. If Gene wanted a Guenther Steiner replacement in that way, he would have appointed somebody else. So I understand that Gene wants something different, and I will try to be the best version of myself rather than trying to be somebody else.”

Komatsu’s F1 career started at BAR in the early 2000s and he then moved to Renault, where he became Romain Grosjean’s race engineer in 2012. He had already taken on the role of chief race engineer by the time he followed the Frenchman to Haas in 2016, before this off-season’s big promotion.

The nature of Steiner’s replacement during the winter means there has been no transition period between the two team principals, and Komatsu says he would have liked to have had a handover spell and the chance to speak to his former boss. For management that is a bad sign. Just dumping someone and then expecting the new guy to leap right in with no knowledge whatsoever. I may get fired for my honesty.

“I worked very closely with Guenther, of course not on the team principal side, but I really enjoyed working with him and he was a good person and a good human being,” he said. “From my personal relationship, we got on really well and off work we had a really good relationship. So I’m a bit sad how it ended, if you like, but I haven’t spoken to him yet.”

RACER understands the timeline between Steiner being made aware of his departure and Komatsu being given the job made such a transition impossible, and the 47-year-old will now have to rely on his own managerial approach as he takes on a team principal role for the first time ever in his life.

“Obviously certain areas I am more familiar with, such as the technical side, certain areas I’m less familiar with, such as the commercial side and marketing side,” he says.

“When I was given this opportunity I just made it clear to Gene: ‘You know my expertise, there’s no point in me trying to focus on the marketing side and trying to get sponsorship because that’s not where my skill set is. In that field I need someone else who is an expert in that area to run it, then I can focus on the technical side, trying to get an organization that we can improve the technical side of the team.’
Komatsu says he’s made it clear to Gene Haas that he intends to play to his strengths in the role of new Haas team principal, and let someone else handle areas such as marketing and sponsorship acquisition. Andy Hone/Motorsport Images

“So yeah, it’s a very different responsibility, but at the same time, any job I’ve done — I used to be in the vehicle dynamics, performance engineer, race engineer, chief race engineer — when you do your current job you always try your best in the job you are doing, but you also look at, ‘OK, what are the other constraints? If certain things are improved, how can I do a better job?’ You always think about that, even when I was doing the previous job.

“Of course this team means a lot to me because I was here since day one. I know what potential this team has got, so in certain areas I can see, ‘Oh maybe you can look at doing things in a different way,’ etc. So in that sense, we’re not short of ideas, if you like, so there’s plenty of areas that we can take a look to improve the team.”

While there is a slight change to the team structure in that Haas will hire a chief operating officer to manage all non-competition matters and departments and relieve those duties from Komatsu, the major investment that other teams are making is not part of the short-term plan at Haas and that's too darn bad.

To that end, the immediate task at hand is going to be about people-management and the way Komatsu can get the same personnel to operate more effectively in the coming seasons.

“I’m focused on improvement, obviously,” he says. “I’d like to think I’m correct enough and I like to think I am bright enough, I am reasonably direct, I think, and then transparency, honesty…

“I don’t do politics. OK, there will be team politics and you say, ‘Are you ready for this?’ but that’s not something I’m focused on. I believe that if you have the right intention and your motivation is clear to get the best out of the team, I think it will get through to people and then you try to empower people and bring them together even if we have to have public floggings. That’s my management style.”

Whether that will be enough to navigate the cutthroat world of F1 team principals who will vehemently defend their own corner in such a competitive industry remains to be seen.

“I don’t know; I’ll find out, I guess!” Komatsu says. “The good thing is [I know] other team managers, because I guess I’ve been doing this for 20 years in a few different teams. I know James [Vowles] from my BAR Honda days, I know Laurent [Mekies] from his Ferrari days, I know Alessandro [Alunni Bravi] from his Lotus days.

“So I know some guys. That I guess helps a little bit. But I don’t know what I don’t know, right? I’m not going to sit here and pretend that, ‘Yeah, yeah, I can deal with all of that.’ I don’t know. But I’ll tackle it as best I can.”

And he’ll tackle it all while trying not to be Guenther Steiner. Save for one admitted similarity…

“This is not something I’m proud to say — my language is not great. I swear way too much, but, again, I’ll try not to do that…and if you don't like it, you can kiss my ******************************************

 

Komatsu feels ‘organic’ growth is the best way forward for Haas.

Yeah, man like we gonna be all natural and green.

"It ain't spending, We gonna call it investing so we can fool the dums***s.’”

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emailBy Chris Medland | January 24, 2024 11:11 AM ET

New Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu believes the team has “got to grow organically” rather than chase a big step forward from major investment. Yeah, man like we gonna be all natural and green.
Invest? In what? if we knew that we wouldn't be at the back end all the time. If you think the team owner is gonna cough up some of the cash he holds onto, you are nutso.

Guenther Steiner’s contract was not renewed by Gene Haas as the team owner was unhappy with recent performances, while Steiner wanted to attract fresh investment to help the team improve its infrastructure and facilities. With the majority of teams on the grid investing heavily — particularly Haas’ main rivals Williams, Stake and the newly rebranded AlphaTauri — Komatsu (pictured above with driver Kevin Magnussen) says he’s unfazed by what others are doing and feels Haas needs to take a more considered approach. Yeah, man like we gonna be all natural and green.
“I don’t know if I’d call it a concern,” Komatsu said. “Of course, it’s a very tough business, but I’m still very positive about what we can do with the current setup, and then as we improve on the current setup, certain things I think will become pretty obvious and natural that, OK, we need to divert slightly from our original model in this way, or we need to invest in this way. But if the word invest means spend money, wellll...“So that will come up naturally, rather than forcing it. I’m not here to turn the place upside down, because then the operating will stop and I will be standing in the line at manpower with a bunch of cigarette smoking homeless bums. If we tried to suddenly to go for [changes] — even if we had massive investment straight away, we won’t be functioning properly, we won’t be using that investment properly. So you’ve got to grow organically, all natural and green man.

“OK, we were not where we should be in 2023, that’s why Gene decided to make changes,” he noted. “But you cannot then suddenly go for a huge leap, because then 2024 will be a complete disaster. We’ve got to improve the team in 2024. I see it as a transitional phase. And then whatever we learn across the course of the year in 2024, I’m sure that will help us very clearly define what we’re doing in five, eight, 10 years’ time if the S.O.B.'s don't fire me first.”

However, Komatsu also insists Haas is not only focused on 2026 as a chance to move forward, believing that team owner made a management change to show the rest of the team he could kick some butt
and he wants to improve more quickly as long as we don't have to spend any of the boss'es money.

“Gene at the moment wants to get off the back of the grid. Maybe he wants to sell the team after the sponsorship money contract runs out. Holding out for some Andretti money didn't work too good. Obviously you saw and heard how unhappy Gene was. Of course, who’s going to be happy competing in last place? It really is embarrassing. So I think it’s positive that Gene is unhappy where we are although he could still fire my yellow a**.. I thought about we start wearing catheter tubes up the crew penises and electrifying them if we lose.
A few times peeing your pants and electric shock may be a good substitute for winning races without spending money and makes about the same amount of sense. Maybe if we don't pay the crew if we don't win is another solution.

“If the people in the team think, ‘OK, we’re last, and we’re not sure where we’re going and neither is anybody else. Gene doesn’t say anything, then OK. Get out there and win me something boy. Is Gene happy just making up numbers and being P10?’ That’s clearly not the case. So that’s actually motivating for everyone here. Get out there and win without using any money or get fired....THAT's motivation! OK, Gene is serious, he wants to improve the team, so let’s do it together instead of with the next guy he hires and do it without spending money, or as the democrtas say: "It ain't spending, We gonna call it investing so we can fool the dums***s’”

 

Komatsu still expects Haas to be at the back in Bahrain.

What do you expect slick?

Are we supposed to beat those top teams without putting up some money to buy parts?

Image courtesy of MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
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emailBy Chris Medland | February 2, 2024 9:30 AM ET

New team principal Ayao Komatsu says Haas expects to still be at the back of the grid at the Bahrain Grand Prix because it lost so much development time with the VF-24 (pictured above).

Haas had a quick car in qualifying last year but was struggling for race pace, and opted to follow the widely adopted Red Bull concept of aerodynamic package in the latter half of the year. A major upgrade was introduced at the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas that ultimately didn’t improve car performance, and while Komatsu says that provided valuable data he also points to the impact it had on work for the 2024 car.

“Out of the gates in Bahrain … I still think we’re going to be towards the back of the grid, if not last,” Komatsu said. “Since I’ve become team principal, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to managers — both in the UK and Italy — and they’re excited because it’s an opportunity to improve and there are areas of improvement everywhere. My gosh are there areas of improvement!

“The reason our launch-spec car is not going to be quick enough in Bahrain is not because of the quality of the people we have here, but it’s because we started late and then we stopped for two months to do the Austin upgrade. It really diverted resource, so we lost time there, but the team is finding good gains in the wind tunnel so that’s positive and in terms of characteristics, it’s going in the right direction, whatever the right direction is.”

In explaining his hopes for how car development will move Haas forward during the season, Komatsu was critical of how the team’s upgrade plans have been handled in the past.

“The focus is to have a good test program for Bahrain so that we come away from the test having quality data for the team to analyze and understand which direction to develop the car. This means understanding the strength and weakness of the VF-24 accurately, then put a coherent plan together to produce updates on the car, which hasn’t happened previously because of the tight fisted guy controlling the money..

“Drivers will play a stronger role too. Last year, in terms of subjective feedback from drivers, their understanding of what the weakness of the car was clear; however, we weren’t then able to reflect that in our car development program. With the changes we made in the team, we aim to address this issue with our drivers more in the loop of development paths so that nothing gets lost.

“As engineers we have all the data from many sensors, but the one thing we can’t do is drive the car and feel what’s going on. So, we’ve got to be able to understand and react to drivers’ feedback better.

If they could just speak English, Ah so baby! ”

 

Haas kicks off F1 launch season with VF-24

Images courtesy of MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
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emailBy Chris Medland | February 2, 2024 9:19 AM ET

Haas has become the first Formula 1 team to reveal its 2024 car with the digital launch of the VF-24 ahead of its shakedown at Silverstone on Feb. 11.

The new car was only shown via digital renders released by Haas on Friday, with an evolutionary approach to the car that was developed last season and a similar tweak to the predominantly black livery. New team principal Ayao Komatsu says the car is not a radical departure that is likely to move the team rapidly forward, but hopes it provides a platform for progress. Yeah man, until we learn what we are doing, we are going to be in last place. What am I supposed to do,
instinctively know what to set things to?

“We’re realistic about our expectations for the VF-24 to start but it’s still an exciting moment in any Formula 1 season to showcase the car,” Komatsu said. “There’s a lot of work ahead of us to make progress and increase our performance but everyone here is highly motivated and eager to get on track with the VF-24.

“I know we’ll be maximizing our time in Bahrain with all the various items we need to push through. Bottom line, we can’t wait to get going and get the season underway.”

Komatsu says the 2024 car is a further step on from the upgraded design that was introduced at the United States Grand Prix last October, with bigger changes able to be made under the bodywork.

“In terms of physical changes, as everyone knows, when we made the upgrade in Austin that was the concept towards this year’s car — but because we had the physical limitation of the side impact structure, rad-duct arrangement, and cooling arrangement, we couldn’t do the full-blown VF-24-type-concept. I knew exactly where we were going for this year, but everyone saw a preview in Austin.”



Haas finished bottom of the constructors’ championship last season and the result led to Guenther Steiner’s departure as team principal, with team owner Gene Haas keen to measure any improvements through the season.
They won't let Andretti race with us since they feel obligated to be sure enough to win right out of the box. And then if Andretti did too much winning, F1 would jump in and demand that Andretti start carrying enough weights
to make him go slower

“I’m looking forward to seeing the VF-24 running and racing — a sentiment I know I share with our partners and indeed the entire team,” Haas said. “In Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, we also know we’ve got a great pair of drivers behind the wheel, their experience will prove invaluable again as we develop our program through the year.

“We’ve used the off-season to put the processes in place to be better and ultimately improve our overall performance.
Soon we get to see how we’re doing.”