Prost unhappy as Alpine departure is leaked.

Who cares? You got the the under age chicks and partied for years, you let racing suck the life out of you, four time Champ!

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emailBy Chris Medland | January 17, 2022 5:08 PM ET

Alain Prost voiced his displeasure at his departure from an advisory role at Alpine being leaked without his approval.

The four-time Formula 1 champion has been an advisor to the Renault-owned F1 team since 2017, but he will no longer work with Alpine in 2022. The news appeared on the official F1 website but not Alpine’s channels, and Prost has now confirmed the news while also criticizing how it became public knowledge.

“I am very disappointed how this news has been announced today,” Prost wrote on his Instagram page. “It was agreed that we would announce together with (Alpine)! No respect sorry! Those MF'ers ratted me out. You dirty SOB's!

“I have refused the offer made to me in Abu Dhabi for the 2022 season because of a personal relationship and I was right! To the Enstone and Viry team, I will miss you.”

Confirmation from Prost that he will no longer work for Alpine comes soon after executive director Marcin Budkowski’s departure was announced, with a shake-up of senior management taking place for the second year in a row. Former Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer has been linked with a move to the French constructor since late last year.

 

Fallows to join Aston as technical director in April after Red Bull deal

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emailBy Chris Medland | January 18, 2022 1:42 PM ET

Red Bull’s highly-rated aerodynamicist Dan Fallows will join Aston Martin in the role of technical director on April 2 after an agreement was reached between the two teams.

Aston signed Fallows last year as part of its ongoing recruitment drive, with Red Bull actually announcing the move in June while stating “Dan will not be departing until the conclusion of his contract” at the time. However, following negotiations between the two teams, a deal has been reached that will see Fallows start work at Aston Martin in a little over two months time, allowing him to have an input on the 2023 car.

In a joint statement released by Red Bull and Aston Martin, it was confirmed that Fallows will remain a Red Bull Technology employee until April, when he will be released to move teams. In the mean time, we won't let him into the building, and he won't be able to
see or touch anything. He might as well pick up his check and go out drinking with hookers.....just like he did on company time
before we canned him.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Red Bull which releases Dan early from his contract and are looking forward to him joining the team,” said Martin Whitmarsh, CEO of the Aston Martin group. We had to pay a boat load of money to ransom
him out of there. No big deal. We have to pay off the F1 officials like everyone else so we can have good honest racing.

More Formula 1!

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Grosjean’s Mercedes F1 test still on

Fallows said: “I’ve enjoyed many happy years at Red Bull Racing and am proud of what we achieved. I am looking forward to next season and a new challenge.”

Red Bull had already announced that it would look to promote internally to replace Fallows in his role of head of aerodynamics, as he leaves following 15 years with the team.

“We would like to thank Dan for his many years of excellent service,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, “and wish him well for the future.”

 

How Next Gen is changing the Gibbs pit stop game. One big wheel nut instead of five is not the only reason pit stops will be faster.

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | January 27, 2022 4:20 PM ET

By now, you know change has come to NASCAR. A lot of change. Continuous schedule tweaks. A brand-new race car, dubbed Next Gen, with its door numbers slid forward. Pit stops will look dramatically different with a single lug nut.

Change brings reaction because it isn’t always universally embraced. People get stuck in their ways or used to tradition.

Chris Hall is not one of those people. Hall is the director of player advancement at Joe Gibbs Racing, and he’s one of those within the company excited about a new era in NASCAR giving him and his colleagues a new challenge. Particularly when it comes to the next generation of Cup Series pit stops.

“Change is summed up as opportunity, and Joe Gibbs Racing’s track record with opportunity is highly successful,” Hall tells RACER. “That’s not by luck. The more you’re in the know, the more prepared you can be, the more excited you are. And we’ve been prepared for a long time. We’re extremely excited about the opportunity to compete with the Next Gen car and the next gen pit stop.”

The vision of Coy Gibbs, team COO, reshaped the way JGR approaches pit crews. Seeing how hard it was becoming to sign top talent from other teams as most were locked down to increasingly long-term deals, Gibbs felt it was worth more emphasis on developing in-house. Plus, off in the distance was Next Gen, and that provided another reason to change tactics. The result was a new role for Hall, which he started about 18 months ago.

“I’ve been tasked with finding new athletes who come from all walks of life, who speak different languages, who aren’t your typical NASCAR fan,” says Hall. “I say all the time, they didn’t grow up playing pit stops in their driveway, and that’s been fantastic because it’s allowed us to become more diverse.”

Hall is a former pit crew member himself. A tire changer at Furniture Row Racing in 2016 and ’17, Hall was on Martin Truex Jr.’s championship-winning team. He performed in the same role for Denny Hamlin in 2018, and spent 2019 at Leavine Family Racing.

Growing up on Missouri dirt tracks on Friday and Saturday nights, Hall rushed home on Sunday from church to turn on NASCAR. His start in the sport came in Nashville with Bobby Hamilton Racing, and he’s done everything from change tires to interiors and car chief. Hall made it to the Cup Series in 2005, first with PPI and Michael Waltrip Racing.

Upon Waltrip’s shutdown, Hall moved to Gibbs, where he’s been ever since. Having gone through the journey, Hall can attest how hard it is and how long it takes for a pit crew member to be ready to go over the wall.

“The Next Gen pit stop is going to allow for such an opportunity for teams to really showcase what the individuals can do,” Hall says. “We’re such a skill-based sport that for so long had a high barrier of entry to get in because the guys who have done it for five, six, seven, eight, nine years got really good at it. And they’ve been in a system where others out there aren’t willing to change – they put up this wall and said, these are our guys, and this is how we’re going to do it.”

JGR didn’t want to come into this year with the same pit crew members from its four teams simply relearning their positions. It wasn’t necessarily that those spots were up for grabs or tryouts were held, but if the pit stops require a new skill set, why not re-evaluate the roster?

It comes down to having the right people in the right places, and as such, Hall and his team stopped looking for the best tire changers and instead have dug into the individual recruiting effort. For so long, recruiting college athletes – those big, tough guys who are used to training and pressure that comes with performing – was the norm. Hall is looking there, and beyond.

“We’re so excited about the Next Gen stop because there’s no barrier to entry. No one’s ever done this pit stop before. Everyone is learning it together,” he says. “So what we’ve taken from it is, you have Olympians in here. You have Major League Baseball players. Players from the NFL. SEC football players. Watching these guys come in who are used to being under the microscope all the time put the work in at the gym, on their skills, and on the practice pad, and the feedback we get from coaches and film review, it’s been an intense battle for those positions.”

The diversity Hall mentioned comes from there now being four different languages spoken in the Gibbs locker room. Crew members come from all areas of the globe and different neighborhoods. It’s made the workplace at Gibbs the most diverse it’s been in 30 years. We can now claim diversity and liberals will love us and buy more tickets. Fans from other sports will love us and buy more tickets, too, and homos on the F.A.G.teams who play soccer are SOL along with the actors who play wrestling.

 

“It forced us to get creative with our people,” Hall says. “Instead of doing the same old song and dance, we thought, what guys and what movements are best for these positions since they are changing?”
Next Gen pit stops will be a very different beast to what’s been done in the past. JGR’s response? A top-to-bottom re-organization of its pit crews and procedures. Image via Toyota

Gibbs has exclusive biomechanic partners in the training world, where they can put their crew members on force plates to measure forces and displacements. It helps explain why individuals are good at what they do, and lead to training in the gym the right way. Another exclusive partner of the company is P3 (applied sports science). It gives JGR access to the same training resources as other professional athletes like Steph Curry, LeBron James, and other professional baseball, soccer, action sports, and Olympic competitors.

“Basically, it’s getting smarter with how to make our athletes more efficient at the job at hand,” says Hall. “For a lot of years, everyone thought we have to have football players, and they’ve got to be really big. That was just the thought, the perception. We’re actually building models out for each of our positions that are like, ‘Well, wait a second. Maybe it’s more about strength and their foot speed, and what forces and displacements they make here, and who do they model after?’ They model after this guy? Well, he’s really good, so maybe we should find more of these.

“So really diving into the science of what’s making each position valuable is just as interesting as where we find these guys and the recruiting pipelines we have set up.”

Hall says JGR started practicing for the Next Gen pit stop to the extent that they could 10 months ago.

“We spent the entire 2021 season running a Next Gen pit stop simulation alongside competing on the weekends,” Hall explains. “It was grueling for our guys (but they) handled it like pros. It was a lot of the coaching staff. It was a lot on the film (department), and I mean, everyone was maxed out. But we feel like that allowed us the opportunity to put the best guys in each position, which will allow us to make great teams for the next gen pit stop.”

Translation: expect to see many new faces on all four pit crews this season.

“All of our pit crews have changed,” Hall says. “I’m not sure that there are two people on a team currently that were on the same team last year.

“Again, it’s all about putting the best product on the (track) with the best guys that are best for our fans and engagement. We feel like the study told us that these are guys who work well together. Some guys are six months into the process who are going to go to the Daytona 500 on a Cup car because of the Next Gen pit stop and how we are doing things, and without that change, the barrier of entry would be too steep for guys to come in and allowed that.”

Nearly 70 athletes were evaluated last year who were unfamiliar with NASCAR. Hall says the vetting process is among the most strenuous in the company. And there are so many departments, coaches, and resources available for pit crew members like the gym, film room, nutrition, and more, that it’s like a company within a company at JGR.

“We make data-driven decisions,” Hall says. “You have to perform to play, and that separates Joe Gibbs Racing from a lot of other race teams, in my opinion. It all goes back to the numbers. What does this guy bring? Or where is he deficient? Can he improve? Is he willing to put the work in? All those things have to line up for you to be successful.

“We associate ourselves as a professional sport, and we treat our guys like professionals, and we give them all the tools they need to be professional athletes. With that comes the understanding that, hey, if you’re good, and you’re hot, and everything is rolling, it’s rolling. But when there’s work to be put in, you should probably put the work in because we’re not waiting around because you’ve done this for 10 or 15 years. The new era is we have guys here hungry, ready to get after it, and the best guy plays.”

By no means does Hall want to give off the impression that JGR is the only company recruiting or doing things in a unique way. But they have embraced developing the new age athlete for the new world of pit stops.

“I think the Next Gen pit stop is going to be one of the most critical components of the event,” says Hall. “If the Next Gen car is the great equalizer for race teams and race car drivers, pit stops are going to be the great separator.”

And as a team sport, Hall sees no better time now than to lean harder into such a concept.

“These guys aren’t just nameless, faceless people,” Hall says of the pit crews. “These guys are interesting. They’re a lot of fun. They’re a cool story to follow. I think to engage a new fan base and continue to grow a fan base, these stories need to be told. I think it’s important for people to understand that the outcome of the race could be because of five people, not what their favorite driver just did.

“And as we get into the Next Gen car and the Next Gen pit stop and this new era of fans, I would love to see a pit crew jersey in the stands. I think it’s the responsibility of the race team, the media, the sport to really dive in and not do this halfway but capture all of it. Publicize it! Let’s tell our story to the best of our ability to really make this thing go and cast our net as wide as it can go. Pit crew jerseys represent a sales dollar we never thought of before and we are recruiting ex-athletes for our race teams.

“With the next gen pit stop, the Next Gen car, I think now is the opportunity to do that.”

 

Karam searching for new Indy 500 opportunity

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | November 17, 2022 1:59 PM ET

Sage Karam has started the hunt for a new opportunity to compete at the Indianapolis 500. The 2013 Indy Lights champion made the first of his nine starts at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2014 with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing where he impressed on the way to placing ninth. Barring his move to Chip Ganassi Racing the following year, the rest of Karam’s seven additional runs at the Brickyard have been with DRR in the No. 24 Chevy.

With today’s announcement of a new partnership between DRR and Cusick Motorsports that moves Stefan Wilson into the No. 24 entry, the Pennsylvanian hopes his oval prowess will attract a team in need of proven veteran next May.

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“I would be open to anything, really,” the 27-year-old told RACER. “I found that out a few weeks ago, and it was kind of a shock. I got the call that I wasn’t coming back, but I want to do Indy still, and that’s a race I want to win and I show up every year to win. I feel like I’ve proven myself enough that I can run up front, jump in a car, and be quick. Definitely disappointing to hear that I wouldn’t be back, but I wish them all the best. I’ve had a great run with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and, and I love everybody there. It was like a family for me. But it’s just unfortunate that it had to come to an end.”

Karam’s best Indy 500 finish was delivered in 2021 when he piloted the No. 24 Chevy to seventh. Although his future is uncertain at the Speedway, Karam says he’ll continue expanding his presence in NASCAR next season and look to make his 10thIndy 500 start if an invitation arrives.

“I really want to just get back in the race again and I’m all ears for whatever’s available,” he said. “But seats are tough to come by nowadays. I have put a lot of effort into going Xfinity racing next year and I have some good stuff going on with that as well, so I will be racing something next year. It’s just at the moment, I’m not doing the 500, but I would really like to fix that.”

 

Another new engineer for Newgarden next season

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | December 13, 2022 1:47 PM ET

Josef Newgarden will pursue his third NTT IndyCar Series championship with a third different race engineer in three seasons.

With the departure of Team Penske engineer Gavin Ward to Arrow McLaren SP late in 2021, the North Carolina-based outfit hired former Pratt & Miller Engineering talent Eric Leichtle to replace Ward last season. Despite his lack of IndyCar race engineering experience, Leichtle and Newgarden combined to win five races — more than any other entry — on the way to placing second in the standings to teammate Will Power.

RACER has confirmed Newgarden will head into 2023 with another first-time IndyCar race engineer in Australia’s Luke Mason, who joined Team Penske in 2022 as the performance engineer on the Tennessean’s No. 2 Chevy. Mason transitioned to the Penske camp after serving as Carlin Racing’s IndyCar performance engineer from 2018 and race strategist through the end of 2021.

Prior to IndyCar, Mason worked in NASCAR as a race engineer for Richard Childress Racing, which was his first post in the United States; his experience down under includes a variety of engineering roles within the Australian Supercars paddock and other related sports car endeavors.

RACER understands Leichtle remains with the team and has shifted to working on IndyCar engineering R&D projects.

 

Sympathy for a guy on the wrong side of racing's cruel streak

Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment: Pagenaud opens a fresh condum in the event he is told to go screw himself. That was kind of harsh....
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | August 8, 2023 5:30 PM ET

I find myself deeply in love with motor racing about 90 percent of the time. The other 10 percent is spent in a state of hate with some aspect of the sport that’s either dumb or cruel, and it’s here where I’ve been struggling to stave off those sentiments whenever I think of Simon Pagenaud and the painful reality he’s been dealing with since the end of June.

More than one month removed from the frightening brake component failure and repeated barrel rolls he endured at Mid-Ohio, the Frenchman’s plight is a reminder of how the time required to make a full recovery from a bad concussion is hazy at best, and confusing at its worst.

The sheer violence of Pagenaud’s crash was astonishing. But more so, what stood out was his remarkable ability to climb from the battered car and walk unaided across the sand trap at Mid-Ohio’s Turn 4 — on unstable ground — without any apparent signs of difficulty.

His interview afterwards with NBC also gave no indications of cognitive issues, and based on the smooth walk to the emergency vehicle and fully lucid interactions on the broadcast, the full effects of Pagenaud’s concussion went largely undetected in the 30 minutes that followed the impact. Any notion that he emerged from the crash unscathed was soon dispelled as IndyCar’s doctors conducted testing that confirmed he was unfit to drive for the remainder of the weekend.

Today’s news of Pagenaud’s ongoing absence from the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda, which will reach six consecutive races after Saturday’s IndyCar race on the IMS road course, draws a bolder line beneath the unpredictable nature of brain injuries. There’s no answer to when the lingering effects of a concussion will subside and allow for a return to the cockpit.

It also raises the uncomfortable question of whether he’ll be able to resume his career before the championship concludes on September 10.

There are just over 30 days left in the season, and for his sake as a free agent, Pagenaud is facing a heart-wrenching urgency to demonstrate he’s at full strength and capable of delivering great results to secure a new contract to stay in IndyCar.
There were few hints of the full implications of Pagenaud’s Mid-Ohio crash when he first emerged from the car. Travis Hinkle/Motorsport Images

Without the necessary clearance from IndyCar’s medical staff to get back to work, he’s in a situation that’s becoming more precarious as the clock winds down and the opportunities to drive are surrendered to time. Pagenaud will have the August 27 oval race at World Wide Technology Raceway, the road course at Portland on Sept. 3, and Laguna Seca circuit on the 10th as the last chances to compete before the offseason arrives and nearly five months of inactivity ensues.

My sympathy for Pagenaud is immense. As a former champion and Indy 500 winner, his acquisition by MSR was a huge thing for the team as it went into 2022 with Helio Castroneves as his teammate. And despite a few bright spots along the way, 2023 — the second year of their two-year contract — was filled with disappointment prior to the crash.

The sympathy from his team is also a powerful thing, and as Mike Shank told me after Linus Lundqvist made a strong case to be given the keys to the No. 60 for the rest of the season, they aren’t rushing to move on from Pagenaud.

“We’re just not those people,” he said. “We’re not going to let Simon out of our lives because a part failed on our car. That’s heavy for me. So we want to see him get better, on his time.”

Where the difficulty for Shank, fellow co-owner Jim Meyer, and Pagenaud is found is in the need for MSR to raise its game in 2024.

The team arrived at Mid-Ohio with Castroneves sitting 20th in the championship and Pagenaud in 24th, which is miles below expectation. And while MSR’s drivers by no means shoulder all the blame for the team’s poor form, the Ohio-based outfit must improve if it wants to keep its partners and sponsors fully invested in the program.

Going forward is the only acceptable outcome next year, and being able to continue running with Pagenaud over the last three races would give MSR a chance to make an informed decision on whether he’s ready to lead the team in that process. Without that chance, MSR will need our sympathy as well.

“We have a very delicate balance we’re dealing with, because we’ve also got 45 people that work here full-time and we have to start figuring out our Plan A and Plan B and what our future could look like,” Shank said. “It doesn’t feel so good for anyone; not knowing what that will be. I can tell you that we’ve made no decision on that yet, and we’re literally taking it week by week with Simon.”

 

Bite the big one, boy!

You're fired!

WTRAndretti’s Albon hopes for Rolex 24 fall through...

should that now be called WTFAndretti instead?

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emailBy Chris Medland | November 7, 2023 9:51 AM ET

Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti’s hopes of having Alex Albon as part of its line-up for the 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona have fallen through. Darn! Now I have to turn my hat around backwards and be a rap star! Right now, I need a place to spit.

In September, team owner Wayne Taylor spoke of a current grand prix driver who was set to join the team’s line-up at Daytona in January, but said an announcement wouldn’t be made until after the end of the Formula 1 season. RACER understands that driver was Albon, who had been approached and shown a keen interest. Williams was fully supportive of the deal and the opportunity for Albon to gain experience in different machinery as long as the commitment did not negatively impact on Formula 1 responsibilities.

After initial positive discussions, it is understood that a number of factors led to the deal not progressing. While Williams was on board with the idea, the team and driver are limited somewhat by the earlier start of pre-season testing from February 21-23. The 2024 F1 season starts in Bahrain on the weekend of February 29-March 2.

Although the logistics proved unworkable for all involved on this occasion, RACER understands Albon remains interested in sampling endurance racing at Daytona in future an attempt to widen his skillset – something Fernando Alonso has highlighted the benefits of in the past.

Albon would have followed a number of current drivers on the grid in competing at Daytona after Alonso, Lance Stroll and Lando Norris – then a Formula 2 driver – all took part in the 2018 edition in LMP2 machinery, while Kevin Magnussen was due to race last year before an operation on his left hand ruled him out as he needed to time his recovery for the F1 season.

 

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.”

 

‘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 ******************************************