Steiner has been replaced by Ayao Komatsu, who has been promoted from his role as director of engineering as owner Gene Haas has pointedly claimed the team now has “engineering at the heart of our management”.
The 58-year-old is a larger-than-life character who has developed a cult following due to his outspoken appearances on the Netflix reality show ‘Drive to Survive’.
Steiner was the driving force behind the team, becoming team principal in 2014 and laying the groundwork that allowed Gene Haas to enter F1 two years later.
At the end of its third season in 2018, Haas’ progress was striking as it finished third in the constructors’ championship, since when it has failed to scale such heights.
Ahead of the current regulation change at the start of 2022, Haas opted not to develop its ’21 car, leading to the team finishing last in the standings, and ignominiously without a point to its name.
Although eighth in 2022, Haas again hit rock bottom last season, scoring just 12 points, and only one of those in the final 17 races as drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg struggled throughout with a car that chewed up its tyres in traffic and plummeted down the field regardless of its qualifying performances.
After initially expressing his thanks to Steiner “for all his hard work over the past decade”, explaining why he has opted to part ways with the Italian, Haas said: “Moving forward as an organisation it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances.
“In appointing Ayao as team principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management.
“We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organisation.
“We need to be efficient with the resources we have but improving our design and engineering capability is key to our success as a team.
“I’m looking forward to working with Ayao and fundamentally ensuring that we maximise our potential – this truly reflects my desire to compete properly in Formula 1.”
Komatsu has been with Haas since its debut season in 2016, starting as chief race engineer.
The 47-year-old Japanese began his 21-year F1 career with BAR in 2003 before joining Renault three years later, working initially as a performance engineer before moving on to race engineer to Vitaly Petrov and then Romain Grosjean, with the duo forming a close bond.
Grosjean’s departure from Lotus to join Haas at the start of its F1 adventure resulted in Komatsu joining him at the American team.
As team principal, Komatsu will take responsibility for overall strategy and on-track performance, with a brief to maximise the team’s potential through employee empowerment, structural process and efficiency.
In a further move by Haas to strengthen the team’s operations off-track, and to assist Komatsu, a European-based chief operating officer is to be appointed to manage all non-competition matters and departments.
Assessing his role ahead, Komatsu said: “Having been with the team since its track debut back in 2016, I’m obviously passionately invested in its success in Formula 1.
“I’m looking forward to leading our program and the various competitive operations internally to ensure we can build a structure that produces improved on-track performances.
“We are a performance-based business. We obviously haven’t been competitive enough recently, which has been a source of frustration for us all.
“We have amazing support from Gene and our various partners, and we want to mirror their enthusiasm with an improved on-track product.
“We have a great team of people across Kannapolis, Banbury, and Maranello, and together I know we can achieve the kind of results we’re capable of.”
Haas has also confirmed it has parted company with technical director Simone Resta.
