After an excellent start to the season, Haas has gradually fallen back in the hierarchy. Ayao Komatsu acknowledges that the lack of resources of his team explains this decline.
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Having started the season well beyond expectations, Haas has not managed to maintain its pace against its rivals over the months. While other teams accelerated the development of their cars, the American team has gradually lost ground.
Its director, Ayao Komatsu, does not look for excuses. On the contrary, he believes that Haas’s structural limits explain this setback and personally takes his share of responsibility.
A start to the season well above expectations
With the new technical regulations coming into effect in 2026, Komatsu admits he expected to see Haas start the season at the back of the grid.
The team, which remains the smallest on the grid despite the arrival of Cadillac this year, had therefore chosen a pragmatic strategy: to focus on the fundamentals rather than immediately seek absolute performance.
This approach has paid off. Oliver Bearman notably secured seventh and fifth places at the Australian and Chinese Grands Prix, confirming that the VF-26 had potential beyond expectations.
“Our start to the season has far exceeded everything I imagined.”
Komatsu explains that the priority was above all to have a reliable car in order to maximize running time and accumulate data.
“We focused on the basics: building the car on time, passing all tests, and ensuring good reliability. To learn, you first need a car capable of running.”
According to him, Haas perfectly exploited every opportunity offered during the first rounds of the championship.
A team overwhelmed in the development race
After five points finishes in the first six Grands Prix, the momentum has however reversed.
Over the races, competitors introduced more upgrades, while Haas struggled to keep up with the pace set by this new regulation, particularly conducive to performance gains.
For Komatsu, this setback does not at all reflect the quality of his team’s work.
“The fact that we have lost ground in the development race is absolutely not a reflection of our staff’s capabilities.”
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The Japanese boss believes his employees are already making the most of the resources they have.
“Our teams fight with fewer staff, fewer tools, and fewer resources than our competitors.”
“The responsibility is on my side”
The Haas boss does not hesitate to take part of the responsibility for this situation.
According to him, the main problem does not lie in the team’s skills, but in the working environment that he still needs to improve.
“I simply have not yet managed to provide them with the conditions that would allow them to fully express their potential.”
He says he is actively working to strengthen the infrastructure and resources provided to enable Haas to remain competitive in the long term.
“It is up to me to create this environment as quickly as possible so that they can show their true value.”
An expected fight against the top teams
Komatsu assures he is not surprised by the season’s development.
With a completely new regulation, he knew that top teams would invest heavily in development and that the technical battle would be particularly intense.
“I knew this development race would be extremely fierce.”
The leader believes that, given Haas’s limited means, everything had to be perfectly executed to stay in touch.
“Without these constraints, everything would have had to be perfect. But in reality, everything cannot be. This explains our current position.”
Despite this setback, Komatsu wants to praise the work of his some 400 employees, whose performance he considers remarkable given the resources available to the American team. For him, the potential is definitely there; now it remains to provide the team with the means to fully exploit it.
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