{"id":19537,"date":"2024-03-21T16:47:04","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T20:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=19537"},"modified":"2024-03-21T16:54:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T20:54:47","slug":"ayao-komatsu-fires-back-at-complete-bull-haas-criticisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/21\/ayao-komatsu-fires-back-at-complete-bull-haas-criticisms\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayao Komatsu fires back at “complete bull****” Haas criticisms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ayao Komatsu dismisses Haas critics<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu has no interest in entertaining critics of Kevin Magnussen’s defensive driving in Jeddah. The 48-year-old secured points in just his second race in charge, though not without criticisms from rivals.<\/p>\n

A series of early skirmishes after the Safety Car restart shaped Haas’ Saudi GP strategy. Magnussen received two penalties in quick succession – with the most relevant being for overtaking Tsunoda off track.<\/p>\n

Ironically, this move eventually contributed to the American outfit achieving a top-10 finish.<\/p>\n

Over the course of several laps, the Danish driver kept the midfield at bay to create a gap for teammate Nico Hulkenberg.<\/a> This allowed the 36-year-old to exit the pits in a net 10th place after making his mandatory stop.<\/p>\n

\"\"
MELBOURNE GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 21: Nico Hulkenberg, Haas F1 Team during the Australian GP at Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit on Thursday March 21, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Simon Galloway \/ LAT Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Haas unapologetic about strategy<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Unsurprisingly, this sequence of events frustrated senior personnel across the field. Williams boss James Vowles and VCARB<\/a> racing director Alan Permane were among them.<\/p>\n

In a season where points will be so hard-fought, there was frustration about the strategy Haas used with their drivers:<\/p>\n

“The strategy? I don’t make any apology. Anybody would have done that,” racingnews365<\/a> quotes him as saying.<\/em><\/p>\n

“[What was] unsportsmanlike us the fact we overtook Tsunoda by going off – but we just didn’t know. <\/em>We put [measures] into place internally to make sure that if the same things happen, we can spot it straight away.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“But what happened after in terms of creating a gap, that’s the obvious thing – If you didn’t do that, you’re not doing your job.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“It’s obvious what we needed to do… Any team would have done the same. And if somebody says no, that’s unsportsmanlike – it’s complete bullshit.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Heading into this weekend’s Australian GP, there will be plenty of intrigue about whether Haas<\/a> can sustain its impressive speed to start 2024.<\/p>\n

So far, the VF-24 is maintaining its predecessor’s relative qualifying performance while showing far greater management over a race distance. This gives Haas a far stronger foundation to build upon as the season progresses.<\/p>\n

Of course, their capacity to improve mid-season improvements is relatively limited. However, they can still secure crucial points early in the season whilst they have the necessary machinery.<\/p>\n

Moreover, it seems feasible that Ferrari’s trajectory will trickle down<\/a> and improve the VF-24 as the season continues.\u00a0In any case, if Haas can maintain its current performance, Ayao Komatsu will continue to exceed expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ayao Komatsu dismisses Haas critics Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu has no interest in entertaining critics of Kevin Magnussen’s defensive driving in Jeddah. The 48-year-old secured points in just his second race in charge, though not without criticisms from rivals. A series of early skirmishes after the Safety Car restart shaped Haas’ Saudi GP strategy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":19539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,2224,68,23,300],"class_list":["post-19537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-ayao-komatsu","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-haas-f1"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}