“I hope he’s really proud,” said Komatsu of Gene Haas. “He’s a true racer. All he cares about is for us to be competitive and he had a commitment to come to F1 when it wasn’t like this 10 years ago.
“He came in, put his own money, his own company behind it, and then created this team. He’s not interested in selling it at all, he’s 100% focused on taking this team to the next step, so I’m really glad that we have an owner like that really behind us, pushing us.”
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‘Almost everything had to shut down…’
Throughout their time in the sport, Haas have been the smallest team on the grid, both in terms of personnel and budget. They’ve regularly punched above their weight – but also gone through some really tough times, including their first (and as yet only) point-less season in 2021 and the battle (like many of their rivals) to survive the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I think our first race in 2016, scoring that point on the debut [was a highlight],” Komatsu said. “Literally coming to Australia, everybody was on their knees. Car build was tough, pre-season testing was really tough, then get to Australia, that’s the first time we’re actually building two cars at the same time, so that’s a huge pressure.
“And then to score that amazing point, great, and then going on to the next race, then we executed that amazing three-stop race with Romain P5, that was incredible. Since then we’ve had amazing P4, P5 in Austria, a pole position with Kevin in Interlagos – just so many moments I look back and I’m really proud of everyone in the team.
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