Master a niche, then listen to experts: How Haas F1’s Ayao Komatsu rose to the top job

[SINGAPORE] Ayao Komatsu did not attend business school to learn how to run a Formula 1 (F1) team. Instead, nearly three years into his tenure as the chief of Haas F1, he continues to rely on the ultimate real-world classroom of high-performance sport.

The son of a political dissident who at one point wanted to become an investigative journalist, the Japanese motorsport executive has engineered his path to team principal of an F1 team after starting as a race engineer in 2003.

Now 50 years old, he credits his technical specialisation – he holds undergraduate and doctoral degrees in engineering – with helping him become a team boss.