Guenther Steiner leaves role as Haas team principal after a decade, Ayao Komatsu takes over the position

Guenther Steiner has left his role as team principal of Haas with immediate effect ahead of the new F1 season.

It is reported that the Italian has not been sacked, but he has been let go following the expiry of his contract due to differing views over how the team should move forward.

Ayao Komatsu will replace Steiner as team principal following a promotion from his position as director of engineering.

Speaking about the decision, Haas owner Gene Haas said: "I'd like to start by extending my thanks to Guenther Steiner for all his hard work over the past decade and I wish him well for the future.

"Moving forward as an organisation it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances. In appointing Ayao Komatsu as team principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management."

Haas were bottom of the constructor standings in 2023, with just 12 points.

To put that into context, champions Red Bull amassed 860 points.

Incoming team principal Komatsu is excited by the challenge of trying to close the gap on the F1 leaders.

"I'm looking forward to leading our programme and the various competitive operations internally to ensure we can build a structure that produces improved on-track performances,” he said.

"We obviously haven't been competitive enough recently, which has been a source of frustration for us all.”

Kevin Magnusson and Nico Hulkenberg are the drivers for Haas, with Magnussen returning to the team in 2022 after he initially raced for them between 2017 and 2020.

He described his time spent with Steiner as “both fun and tremendously challenging - but never boring”.

The new F1 season begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix, which gets underway on February 28.

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