Ayao Komatsu, Crew Principal, Haas F1 Crew, has joined the lineup of featured audio system for the fifth Annual Race Trade Week, going down Monday via Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.
No cost to attend. Click on right here to register. Race Trade Week is delivered to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For extra info, please click on right here.
Ayao Komatsu started a brand new function at MoneyGram Haas F1 Crew for the 2024 FIA System 1 Championship, main the workforce ahead within the function of Crew Principal after having beforehand managed the engineering division as Chief Race Engineer and subsequently Director of Engineering.
Komatsu was born in Tokyo, Japan and from an early age had an curiosity in racing – albeit initially of the two- wheel selection – attributable to having Japanese MotoGP star Norick Abe rising up in the identical city.
Pursuits turned to System 1 as races have been being broadcast free-to-air throughout the nation, with a core racing reminiscence for Komatsu being created at his residence race. The 1989 Japanese Grand Prix performed host to probably the most controversial collisions within the historical past of the game when McLaren-Honda teammates Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost collided whereas combating for the championship.
That curiosity and keenness additional consolidated Komatsu’s aspirations of turning into an engineer in System 1, and at 18 years outdated, he moved midway internationally to the ‘residence of motorsport’ – England. He selected to check Automotive Engineering at Loughborough College, an establishment famend for each sport and engineering.
As a part of the course, he started an trade placement at Lotus Engineering, primarily based in Norfolk. His supervisor owned an outdated System 3 automotive and spent weekends at tracks up and down the nation, one thing Komatsu was fast to supply help on, gaining his first perception into the practicalities of working inside motorsport.
As soon as Komatsu graduated in 1999, he furthered his research for a PhD in the identical subject. Concurrently, the post-graduate continued working without cost in newbie classes, the place he met Takuma Sato. This opportunity assembly could be pivotal in Komatsu’s early maturity, and the pair labored collectively in British F3 at Carlin, the place he was capable of apply the theoretical work from his research to the real-world surroundings of the race observe.
As Komatsu was ending his PhD and taking a look at coming into the office, he accepted a place at TRW, however a change in administration meant the function by no means got here to fruition. One other ‘virtually’ second got here following an interview with Colin Kolles for the function of Race Engineer in his System 3 workforce positioned in Germany. However as soon as once more, simply as probability would have it, Komatsu acquired a telephone name from Sato.
“How are you, Ayao?”
That telephone name could be the stepping stone to Komatsu’s profession in System 1, with Sato connecting him to Shoichi Tanaka from Honda Racing Improvement.
Komatsu’s first full-time job in motorsport began in 2003, working at BAR Honda as a part of the check workforce, specializing in car dynamics. In his third yr on the Brackley workforce, he targeted on tire evaluation at a time when each Michelin and Bridgestone have been suppliers within the sport, and it was one of many greatest differentiators in workforce efficiency.
In 2006 Renault got here calling and he joined in the same function throughout the workforce’s championship-winning season with Fernando Alonso. The next yr he turned part of the race workforce as a efficiency engineer, the place he would stay for 3 years working with drivers together with Nelson Piquet Jr. and Romain Grosjean.
The transfer to develop into race engineer occurred forward of the 2011 season, the place Komatsu labored alongside Vitaly Petrov, the pairing most notably getting a podium at their first race collectively in Melbourne.
For 2012, he reunited with Romain Grosjean following the Frenchman’s return to the game and the newly-named Lotus F1 Crew.
An expert and private friendship shaped between the 2, scoring 9 podium finishes and combating for race wins in 2013. Two years later, Komatsu was promoted to chief race engineer, and the ultimate spotlight of their partnership got here on the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix, the place Grosjean secured the workforce’s solely podium of the season.
In 2016 a brand new workforce entered System 1 beneath the title of Haas F1 Crew. The one sole-American owned workforce on the grid was an thrilling prospect to many, and Romain Grosjean signed to the workforce the place he would finally race for 5 years.
It was additionally a possibility too good to move up for Komatsu, who ended his 10-year tenure at Renault to affix Grosjean as chief race engineer. Komatsu was integral to the workforce’s early credibility within the sport, managing all trackside engineering actions on-site, and a car efficiency group, car science group and electrical engineering on the workforce’s UK amenities.
Throughout the workforce’s first eight seasons, he engineered Haas to an unforgettable points-finishing debut in Melbourne, a best-ever end of fourth and fifth, and navigated a frantic wualifying session the place a rained- drenched session in Brazil in 2022 noticed Kevin Magnussen and MoneyGram Haas F1 Crew safe their first pole place.
Komatsu now oversees all competitors parts of the enterprise as workforce principal. Obligations embody the workforce’s total technique, and finally on-track efficiency, with a quick to maximise the workforce’s potential via worker empowerment and structural course of and effectivity.
