New Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has said he has no intention of being a like-for-like replacement for his predecessor Guenther Steiner, but added he is just as partial to using bad language.
Last week Haas announced Steiner’s contract had not been renewed for 2024, with Komatsu, the team’s former director of engineering, chosen to take over the top job.
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Speaking to media on Tuesday, Komatsu was reluctant to reveal details of his planned changes to the team’s structure as he had yet to speak with the heads of the team’s design office in Maranello, Italy.
The 47-year-old Japanese engineer has a relatively low public profile compared to Steiner, who became a superstar in the sport as a result of his straight-talking, often foul-mouthed, appearances on the Netflix docuseries ‘Drive To Survive.’
Komatsu said team owner Gene Haas had picked him precisely because he would bring a different skillset to the role of team principal.
“Of course, I’m not trying to be Guenther Steiner,” Komatsu told reporters. “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 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 knows that, and 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.”
Asked if he cursed as much as Steiner, Komatsu joked: “This is not something I’m proud to say, but my language is not great! I swear way too much, but, again, I try not to do that.”
Komatsu also said he had no intention of filling the gap that will be left by Steiner in the next series of Netflix’s hit show.
“Honestly, my job role, fundamentally, is to improve the team’s competitiveness,” he…
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