Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal, Haas F-1 Team, has joined the impressive lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, Dec. 2–5.
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With over 20 years of Formula 1 experience, Komatsu will begin a new role at MoneyGram Haas F-1 Team for the 2024 FIA Formula 1 Championship, leading the team forward in the role of Team Principal, having previously managed the engineering department as Chief Race Engineer and subsequently Director of Engineering.
Komatsu was born in Tokyo, Japan and from an early age had an interest in racing – albeit initially of the two- wheel variety – having Japanese MotoGP star Norick Abe growing up in the same town, with the young maverick establishing his career stateside.
Interests turned to Formula 1 as races were being broadcast free-to-air across the country, with a core racing memory for Komatsu created at his home race. The 1989 Japanese Grand Prix played host to one of the most controversial collisions in the history of the sport, as McLaren-Honda team-mates Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost came to a halt as the pair locked wheels while fighting for the championship.
That interest and passion further consolidated Komatsu’s aspirations of becoming an engineer in Formula 1, and at 18 years old, he moved halfway across the world, to the ‘home of motorsport’, England. He chose to study Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University, an institution renowned for both sport and engineering.
As part of the course, he began an industry placement at Lotus Engineering, based in Norfolk. By coincidence, his manager owned an old Formula 3 car and spent weekends at tracks up and down the country, something Komatsu was quick to offer support on, gaining his first insight into the practicalities of working within motorsport.
Once Komatsu graduated in 1999, he furthered his studies for a PhD in the same topic. Simultaneously, the post-graduate continued working for free in amateur categories, where he met Takuma Sato. This chance meeting would be pivotal in Komatsu’s early adulthood, and the countrymen worked together in British F-3 at Carlin, where he was able to complement the theoretical work used in his studies, in the real-world environment of the race track.
As Komatsu was finishing his PhD and looking at entering the workplace, he accepted a position at TRW but a change in management meant the role never came to fruition. Another ‘almost’ moment came following an interview with Colin Kolles for the role of Race Engineer in his Formula 3 team positioned in Germany. But once again, just as chance would have it, Komatsu received a phone call from a familiar friend, Takuma Sato.
“How are you, Ayao?”
That phone call would be the stepping stone to Komatsu’s career in Formula 1, with Sato connecting him to Shoichi Tanaka from Honda Racing Development.
Komatsu’s first full-time job in motorsport started in 2003, working at BAR Honda as part of the test team, focusing on vehicle dynamics. In his third year at the Brackley team, he focused on tire analysis at a time when both Michelin and Bridgestone were suppliers in the sport, and it was the biggest differentiator in team performance.
In 2006, Renault came calling for Komatsu, where he continued in a similar role during the team’s Championship winning season with Fernando Alonso. The following year he became a part of the race team as a Performance Engineer, where he would remain for three years working with drivers including Nelson Piquet Jr. and Romain Grosjean.
The move to become Race Engineer happened ahead of the 2011 season, where Komatsu worked alongside Vitaly Petrov, with the pairing most notably getting a podium at their first race together in Melbourne.
For 2012, he would reunite with Romain Grosjean following the Frenchman’s return to the sport and the newly named Lotus F-1 Team. Coming back as GP2 Champion, Grosjean came back with a renewed motivation, and a more tempered driving style.
A professional and personal friendship formed between the two, scoring nine podium finishes and fighting for race wins in 2013. Two years later, Komatsu was promoted to Chief Race Engineer, and the final highlight of their partnership came at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix, with Grosjean securing the team’s only podium of the season.
In 2016 a new team entered Formula 1, the first to do so in six years, under the name of Haas F-1 Team. The only sole-American owned team on the grid was an exciting prospect to many, and Romain Grosjean signed to lead the team in its maiden season, where he would eventually race for five years.
It was also an opportunity too good to pass up for Komatsu, who ended his 10-year tenure at the Enstone team to join Grosjean at the American Marque, as Chief Race Engineer. No longer solely a race engineer, Komatsu was integral to the team’s early credibility in the sport, managing all trackside engineering activities on-site, and a vehicle performance group, vehicle science group and electrical engineering at the team’s UK facilities.
During the team’s first eight seasons, he’s engineered Haas to an unforgettable points-finishing debut in Melbourne, a best-ever finish of fourth and fifth, and navigated a frantic Qualifying session where a rained- drenched session in Brazil, 2022, saw Kevin Magnussen and MoneyGram Haas F-1 Team secure their maiden pole position.
Komatsu will now oversee all competition elements of the business as Team Principal. Responsibilities include the team’s overall strategy, and ultimately on-track performance, with a brief to maximize the team’s potential through employee empowerment and structural process and efficiency.