Komatsu: from tire engineer to team principal
Ayao Komatsu he is in his first year in Formula 1 as team principal of Haas, hired by the American team to replace Günther Steiner. However, the career of the Japanese engineer in the Circus began at the beginning of the 2000s, when he held the position of tire performance engineer at the BAR. A role that the 48-year-old subsequently retained as well Renaultfinding a driver of the caliber of in the team Fernando Alonso.
The qualities of Alonso and Kubica
It was the Spaniard, now in Aston Martin and twice world champion, who particularly impressed Komatsu during the tire teststo the point of being considered by the latter to be one of the two most talented drivers with whom he worked in the official F1 podcast, Beyond the Grid: “When I went to Renault and took part in a tire test with Fernando Alonso, it opened my eyes – he said – absolutely another level, incrediblewhether it was providing feedback or knowing what he needed to do in five quick laps to get the tires working well on lap 20. Fernando is the most impressive driver I have worked with, but also Robert Kubica, despite having only been with him for a year, was one of those riders who knew he could bring something special. In his time I thought he would become world champion, he spent every day with the engineers and was very interested in Formula 1. He only cared about this and his poker games with Alonso”.
The differences with another world champion
Throughout his career, Komatsu has also worked alongside other world champions such as Jenson Buttoneven if the latter struggled to reach the same levels as the Spaniard: “I usually gave Fernando a specific number of laps to complete with each set – he continued – for example, he asked for 20 laps, but from 15 to 20 laps you had to increase the pace to a certain amount, so that on the entry lap he was destroyed. When I tested with Jenson at BAR, with nothing against him, I found it a bit difficult to reach the objectives, because either he pushed too much or the tire entered the garage too well and left time. You gave Fernando those goals and he achieved them, incredible. If the tires were behaving one way or the other on the third or fourth lap, he knew how to drive to get the maximum on the 20th lap. He brought everything we engineers wanted, it was incredible. I understood why this guy is a world champion.”
