Guenther Steiner tells Ayao Komatsu he ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ after latest Haas claims

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Haas is enjoying an impressive Formula 1 season having doubled their points total from last year.

The American team started off the year by axing former team principal Guenther Steiner, after team owner Gene Haas grew frustrated with their results.

Haas elected to replace the star of the Netflix series Drive to Survive with the lesser-known Ayao Komatsu, who has since carried out his role efficiently and exploited unconventional strategies to earn the team valuable points.

In a recent interview, the 48-year-old revealed that the key issue surrounding Steiner’s reign was their lack of car development during COVID-19, in preparation for future seasons.

However, Steiner has rebuffed Komatsu’s claims when asked about them on the Red Flags podcast.

Guenther Steiner rebuffs Ayao Komatsu claims

Steiner admitted midway through the 2023 season that Haas got their car concept wrong, leading to a shift in concept midway through the season.

That decision turned out to be correct for the team, as they now head into the second half of the season seventh in the Constructors’ Championship and just seven points behind VISA CashApp RB.

Steiner believes that was something Komatsu did not consider when aiming his comments at his management of the team.

“If he’s going back to 2019, it was a different world. You know, so he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about there. I mean, last year, I was always pretty clear,” said Steiner.

“Last year, the concept of the car was wrong and it was admitted in June, and it was changed. Therefore, he should thank that one because that made it possible to have in 2024 a good car at the beginning of the season, which he had nothing to do at all with it. You know, he had zero to do.”

Ayao Komatsu highlights Haas future ‘bottleneck’ problem

Haas is one of the more unique teams on the grid with operations in the UK, Italy and their main racing headquarters in the US.

Komatsu believes there could soon be a problem with their headquarters in Italy, identifying a ‘communication’ issue that could ‘bottleneck’ in the future.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Haas F1 Team from team principal to Ferrari relationship

The team is going to have an all-new driver lineup for 2025 onwards in the form of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, the latter of which impressed with his race outing replacing Carlos Sainz at Ferrari at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Bearman said he is ‘not prepared’ for the physical aspect of driving an F1 car yet, having only been used to driving in Formula 2 for most of the year.