F1 Explains: Ask a Team Principal - with Ayao Komatsu

0:05Hello everybody and welcome to the British Grand Prix and of course to F1 Explains, the official Formula 1 podcast that is here to answer your questions on the sport. Maybe this is the first time you've ever heard us. We know there's a lot of new listeners joining us this year. If that's the case, welcome. If you've been here since the start, you're equally as welcome. How this podcast works is you email f1explains at f1.com. And then I, Christian Hugill, explore the Formula One paddock to find the best person to answer those questions. As somebody wheels past a forklift thing, because we're talking to you at the very start of the Grand Prix weekend.

0:47Really, the paddock has only just finished being built. We're at the very start of the Grand Prix weekend. and we're stood outside a metallic shiny building that is currently being window cleaned. One of those squidgy window cleaner things is being used to make sure it looks super shiny. It's black, it's red. It is, of course, if it's black and red, the Haas Motorhome. This week, it's one of our Ask a Team Principal episodes. We do this a few times a year. we get on a team principal to mop up all the questions you sent into the inbox about the role of the team principal they're always very interesting episodes because one of the things i think i've learned most about doing this podcast over the years is many people can have the same job title in this case team principal but actually the job can look and feel and have different responsibilities across the paddock we were with audi the other week who of course have a head of F1 project in Matteo Bonotto and a racing director in Alan McNish.

1:52You have Mercedes where Toto Wolff is also the CEO and the team principal. Of course McLaren that's different they have their CEO with Zach Brown and then Andrea Stella as their team principal. So it's always interesting to look at how the different teams operate how they're made up and of course the team principal of Haas is Ayo Komatsu. He took over from Gunter Steiner who was of course iconic in the role in many ways really but Ayo has put his own stamp on the team. He's been very effective at squeezing out results from the team. There was an immediate upturn in fortunes when Ayo took over and Haas are this season in that competitive midfield battle where the likes of Alpine, Williams and Haas are all vying for points.

2:41So you've been sending questions about the role of the team principal, and it just so happens that Ayo has the answers.

2:52Ayo, welcome to F1 Explains. This time last year, you did one of our live shows on the main stage. Now we're in your office. This is the second team principal office we've been in. Would you like to hazard a guess as to which other team principal has invited us into their office? I don't know, Toto? Not Toto? No. I've interviewed George in Toto's office. Oh, really? Toto had been kicked out. James Valls. Oh, really? James had us in. Okay. Nice of him. Nice, Matt. So, Aya, we have questions on the role of a team principal from our listeners. Would you like to have a stab at answering some of them?

3:29I'll try. I'm sure you'll do a good job. You're very well qualified for the job. I'm not sure. Of course you are. We're going to start at one of our favourite places, Austin, Texas, which is where Mariah lives. Mariah says, hi, Ayo, what makes a fast F1 driver? And what makes one driver faster than another, especially if they're in the same machinery? Is it confidence through the corners? Better reaction times on the starting grid? More general recklessness? Thank you and a howdy and a yeehaw from Austin, Texas. And that's from Mariah. We say howdy back. That's a very, very good question. Honestly, like many things, right?

4:08Obviously, first and foremost, you've got to have the ability to drive. If you look at the kids in the go-kart, regardless of experience, the first kids are always fast straight away. So you've got to have that natural ability. They are athletes, they are sportsmen. But then that natural ability itself is absolutely not good enough to succeed in Formula 1. You've got to get the best out of your team, so you've got to have really good cognitive ability. And then also when you're driving, your driving has to be so automatic because there's so many other information you got to absorb and execute or digest and execute.

4:46So while you're driving flat out, you know, how much brain space you got left, you know, how much capacity you're using just to drive as low as that possible. That means like, you know, all the other things comes at you, whether the instruction from engineers are thinking about using tires or not to use tires, etc. etc you know more spare capacity you got you can extract more from yourself and also like a pressure in formula one it's crazy it's nothing like any other series so again having a good team build around you to get you know yourself in the best position to perform joelian palmer you'll be aware of his work explained this really well on a previous episode of f1 explains where he said that he was looking at the data in comparison to his teammate at the time at reno nico hulkenberg and there was elements where for example they could see on the data that nico was breaking later into a particular corner so that might help but joelian was saying to us that he just didn't have the ability in him to do what nico was doing in that particular corner i'm imagining for all the data in the world you sometimes just rely on that sheer innate ability which is almost hard to explain isn't it but this is what i said at the beginning right you got to have the natural talent natural speed, the ability to drive, that's not something you can teach people.

6:05Like same as footballers, right? You cannot teach everyone to be messy, obviously. It's exactly the same. You know, you cannot teach kids, everybody to be like Oli Beerman, no matter how much work you put into it. There is a certain level of natural talent you really need. But then in Formula One, in order to harness that talent, to produce a consistent result, to maximize your potential, it's a lot more than that. For instance, Jolion talked about looking at the data, right? That's the basics. Any driver will do that. But then to then understand, okay, provided you've got the ability to do it, but you've got to know how to unlock the potential.

6:47Of course, you've got to adapt the car, so you have to work with the engineers, but you've got to work with yourself, whether it's a physical thing or mental thing or feeling thing. What is it? So it touches all aspects. And then top drivers, you know, you got to create that performing environment, you know, around yourself. If you surround yourself by somebody who tells you what you want to hear, you're not going to get there. Is it a hard part of the role of a team principal on a human level to have to make those calls on drivers? Because you are judging them on fundamentally your job is to make sure they score points for your team.

7:23Is that tricky on a human level? Because you might be dealing with, and I'm sure you'll have had this in your career, drivers who you like. but who you ultimately aren't good enough for the job that must be tricky as a human it is tricky but it's a you know it's my job as a it's a it's a professionalism matter of professionalism for instance you know you talked about you know jorian talked about nico hugenberg right nico is somebody who i really respect greatly and his professionalism is amazing but i really like him as a person human being right i i call him as a friend but again the professional relationship I managed to build with Nico throughout my actually first year as team principal in 24, that is a benchmark for me because we both really invested in how to make this car go quicker, how to get performance out of you as a driver, performance out of the team.

8:17And then we really worked very well together and we had huge respect for each other. So we could have any conversation. You know, sometimes you have to have the hard conversation, right but if you don't have the foundation of trust and respect you cannot have those hard conversations because then other parties are going to take it personally but with Nico and none of those issues because we really had that very good foundation at really high level that you are able to tackle anything head on then again that that is something as a driver needs to be able to do and then I need to be able to do that but again that's just a build on the relationship Really interesting insight.

8:56I hope, Mariah, that has answered your question. We're going to stay in America for our next question. David is from New York, but originally of Sydney. David says, my question is on team sizes. What would be the rough size of the teams on the current F1 grid? But Io, I know you're going to say to me that the teams very much differ in size, don't they? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the bigger teams are more than 1 ,200 people, 1 ,300 people, right? And then, again, I know the other, even the midfield teams towards the top of the midfield, they are just under 1 ,950. And even some of the midfield teams have more than 1 ,000 people.

9:37And then we have 400 people. So it's a very different spectrum on the grid. And forgive me if this sounds obvious, how much of a help are more people? Because you've just given us numbers, but what are those sorts of teams who have got more people, what are they able to do with those people? Yeah, I mean, size is not everything, but of course the size helps, the resource helps, but you still got to put it together. But if you just think it very simplistically, let's say we are 400 people, I said the bigger teams are 1 ,200 people. So if you look at where the performance is coming from, let's say aerodynamics, aerodynamicist, the job of like one person in our team could be for the same job.

10:23Company like Ferrari or Mercedes probably have three people on there. Right. So that means, you know, three times more potential to come up with good idea. More brain power. Faster, everything, accuracy. and then even in a non let's say performance department finance department you know the these days efficiency is the key you know cost performance especially under the budget cap yes we are not at the budget cap yet but last year we are on the budget cap okay then bigger teams they will have i'd say close to 10 times or seven eight times more people than us in the finance department so then again the accuracy and then the efficiency they can provide with those expertise in the finance department will seep through to performance so yes the numbers helps numbers not everything because you got to put it together you got to get people to work together but it's not like i'm sitting here saying we are 400 people it's fine it's not we need to grow but we need to grow in the manner that we can keep this focus and efficiency and on that if i may be as bold as to offer an opinion it strikes me that one of your successes as a team principal is from the minute you came in you seemed and do correct me if I'm wrong to be saying I think we can sort of squeeze more out of this that we there is more capability in that team so that must be a large part of your job when you are managing a team with fewer people working out how you can get more a hundred percent fewer people than your rivals yeah for sure like when I took on this job in the beginning of 24 we are 260 people wow 260 you know but then even then i knew that we can get more out of those 260 people and they're not saying that that's the right number we need to grow like we said but i know that in parallel we can get more out of these 260 people and to be honest then then we moved on right we improved the team etc but then now we say we have 400 people But like you said, I know we can do more with 400 people.

12:26I know we can get more better results out of these 400 people. So there's room for improvement. But at the same time, I know that in the background, we need to grow as a team. So we got to do that in parallel. A similar question actually from Julius in Lithuania. Hello, Julius. Julius says, how do teams plan and prioritize development work across the season? are small upgrades like one new part done differently to packages of upgrades where lots of new things are done at the same time and who's in charge of the upgrade plan right again very very good question so who's in charge of the upgrade plan that's a senior management group we have a program management we have a technical director head of aro head of performance and also myself and then of course we have a strategy baseline strategy throughout the season even the year starts right and then whether it's a final year of the stable regulation or brand new year like this year first year of the brand new regulation it's a strategy different of course because this year because regulation is brand new you'd expect people not to be getting best out of it earlier in the season so that means people's gonna aggressively put upgrades on the car earlier in the season so so that that kind of thing is in consideration but of course we don't have a infinite amount of money right so you got to decide okay we got what looks like a decent package is that good enough if we do this package how many more packages can we do so you got to really judge that saying let's say you know talk about a big package for argument's sake if you can do let's say four big packages throughout the season that four big package the timing and then the performance you gain what is big right in terms of lap time gain you got to judge that very well because if you wait too long you're going to be introducing upgrade too late but if you compromise too early you're not putting enough performance on the car so so that's a judgment call but also depending on where you are on the sporting result you know if you are fighting with your direct competitors then if you had some margin maybe you can afford to wait one more race right but if you on neck and neck you might want to get next upgrade straight away yeah yeah but of course there's a delay in terms of when you finish working the wind tunnel to the parts on the car so you got to forecast those things but there's always those judgment calls it's sort of like a chess game isn't it so when you bring them in your counterpart to aston martin adrian new he's been talking about wanting to do what you said they're a bigger upgrade not smaller upgrade so yeah it's all interesting and also depending on what your issue is you know how deep is your fundamental issue you know if you got big problem in the car is that the one big issue the fundamental thing you got to solve then if that's the case it's likely it's going to take more time but if you got let's say i wouldn't say smaller but uh more issue on the surface that that's something you may be able to solve quicker right so it really depending on what is your achilles heel on your car

15:35Hayley is in California. Hayley says, Hi Christian and the F1 Explains team. I love the podcast. I'm a new viewer of F1 as of late last season and the pod's been extremely helpful in increasing my understanding and appreciation of the sport. That's very nice of Hayley from California, isn't it? We like Hayley. Hayley says, I would love it if you could explain what happens when one team thinks another has broken the rules. I love this question. So picture the scene. you think there might have been a rules infringement do you let it slide and think the stewards will pick up on it of course not we are competitive we are always trying to get as best result as possible, we abide by the rules so everybody should be abiding by the rules so if we think somebody is illegal of course we let them know you grass them up do you call that grass them up?

16:25I'm not sure grass them up is quite an English of course you know it's the way there's a way to do it you know depending on what it is you know degree of if somebody's blatantly cheating but if there's a gray area that people's pushing everybody pushing on the gray area it's part of the game so you know if you get let's say glassed up nobody's crying about it because you know the risks fair game yeah yeah and they do it to you a hundred percent and then it's nothing personal right and then even when we you know when we are let's say having a heated argument in either technical advisory committee or even a fan commission meeting none of that is personal everybody's trying to serve their own interest and then trying to get competitive advantage that's the name of the game it's one of those areas where like i love the sport i've been a fan of the sport since the late 90s early 2000s i just think it's one of the funniest parts of the sport i love that you incredibly clever people on the pit walls are basically telling tales on each other to try and get the other punished it's good fun so basically If you see some interesting idea that you haven't thought of, and if you think that's a grey area, there's two things you're going to do.

17:36Either copy it, then get it on your car as soon as possible so you have advantage as well. Or we can't do it, let's get it banned. And if it then doesn't get banned, I'm imagining the next step is we'll work out how we can do it. Because if they're doing it and it's legal. No, no, no, no. You make that decision even beforehand. And if you assess if you can do it or not, if you can, you should just do it, right? Faster than anybody else. But if you think you cannot do it for whatever the reason, you're trying to get it banned as soon as possible. Oh, no, sure. But if they say it is fine, and you've thought you can't do it previously, surely the next point is, well...

18:14Yeah, but if they say, okay, this is legal, then you get upset about it, but you have to move on. And say, accept that somebody else has done a better job than you. Of course. i just quickly before you go because you've got 30 seconds you're a couple of years into the job now how much are you enjoying it do you get to enjoy the job as a team principal honestly i love it it's such a amazing opportunity and i love working with people and then that the moment i take joy out of this job is like when we have certain produce certain result and i see people enjoying it or when i challenge certain people and then they step up and then they flourish their potential more than what they thought they had.

18:54And then I take huge joy from seeing people grow and then harness their potential, even the potential that they didn't think they had. So that's the biggest joy I have doing this job. We wish you and both of your drivers well this weekend, especially Oli, of course, at his home Grand Prix. So good luck to all of you guys this weekend. Thanks, Ayo. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

19:15Ayo Komatsu there answering some of the questions that you sent to F1explains at F1.com about the role of the team principal and of course more broadly some of the considerations of a team principal. I very much enjoyed hearing about how he thinks of drivers in terms of their speed and what he's assessing and what he's looking at. That was really interesting. And also explaining what's going through his head when they're looking at bringing parts and upgrades. I mentioned it briefly in the interview but we do have teams who bring smaller upgrades at a time and it's sort of evolution rather than revolution.

19:49That does particularly tend to be teams more towards the top end of the grid because as Io says, by the very nature that they're at the top end of the grid, they haven't got fundamental flaws, fundamental issues. So it is little things that they're trying to get an advantage. But then we've of course been seeing Aston Martin struggling this season. We all want them to do better. You know, more teams competing at the front is good. But they obviously, by the very nature of being at the back, have bigger issues. And their team principal Adrian Newey is saying, we're going to bring one big upgrade that should make a difference.

20:20They're talking about bringing that just before the summer break. So it's all very interesting. And of course, all the role of the team principal too, even if it's not them making the decision in the first place, they're the ones sort of overseeing it and checking it works. I do love the randomness of Formula One. I mentioned at the start of the show, it sort of feels like we're still in setup mode here. We're talking to you on Thursday late morning. Somebody's just wheeling past me as we speak. some massive potted plants and then behind him is someone from cadillac with what looks like a car part just the difference in the roles that person is head of potted plants big potted plants as well and i think they're real i recently complimented some plants in a studio and i was like you're keeping them very well they were fake but they're not so that's good anyway i should tell you if you are heading to silverstone this weekend for the british grand prix this is being released all over the world on Friday.

21:14On Saturday, so tomorrow if you're listening on release day, we are doing an F1 Explains live show. It is at 10.20 on the main stage in the fan zone, and our special guest is Damon Hill. Of course, the 1996 Formula 1 world champion, TV pundit, who's been on F1 TV a few times this season, lovely man, and also very entertaining. So we'll be putting some of your questions to a world champion. If you're not at the British Grand Prix, anything, I'd have loved to have seen an interview with Damon Hill. Don't worry, because next week's F1 Explains will be that very interview with Damon on the main stage.

21:52One thing I would also say if we are heading to the British Grand Prix, if you're listening to this, I know there were people listening last year on their way. It's colder than I thought it would be. It's quite cool. There's a man in front of me literally rubbing sun cream on his arms, and we of course encourage that. You've only got one skin. It's yours for life. Look after it. But it is cooler than I thought it would be. So that's some public service information I would give to people heading to the British Grand Prix. And just before we go, shall we just stick around to see who's walking into the paddock, producer Jamie, because the Netflix boom mic seems to be following somebody.

22:24So is that somebody famous? Is that a Formula One driver in front, do we think? Heading in. We're stood in between Aston Martin and in between Haas. Apparently it's Lando Norris, a nice gentleman with a race against dementia badge, tells me. Is Lando on his way in? Here he is. Here's Lando Norris in a very luminous yellow T-shirt. I was going to grab him to say hello, but he's right over the other side. But as if this was pre-planned, Lando Norris is the latest interviewee on F1 Beyond the Grid. Our sister podcast. Just search F1 Beyond the Grid, wherever you listen to your podcasts, to hear Lando Norris talking in depth to Mr Tom Clarkson about, well, I've not heard the interview, but I'm guessing there's a bit of...

23:03Producer Jamie, were you there when it was being recorded? I wasn't, but I have edited it. Oh, there you go. Good. so I'm guessing there was world champion based chat. How being a world champion has changed him and a very interesting answer when Tom asked him do you see yourself as a one team driver? I think I've seen some quotes surrounding this. Yes, well there you go. Search F1 Beyond the Grid. Good plugging producer Jamie. F1 Beyond the Grid, wherever you get your podcasts to listen to that. Of course there is also F1 Nation on this very feed with race previews and race debriefs so that will mop up all the action from the British Grand Prix.

23:37We're all interested here as to who will be the favourites this weekend. Starting to feel like a Mercedes circuit. Long straights, but let's find out. And we will be back with another F1 Explains next Friday. As I say, with Damon Hill. Somebody wheels something very loud past. You're not knowing we're recording a podcast. With Damon Hill, recorded as a live show on the Silverstone main stage. If you're coming, look forward to seeing you there. If not, it'll be here next week. And send in those questions. F1explains at F1.com. from me, Christian Hugill, here at Silverstone at the British Grand Prix.

24:10Bye for now.