F1's most unlikely debutant of 2025

The list of drivers to benefit from Toyota’s partnership with Haas and get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car is already quite long: Ryo Hirakawa, Ritomo Miyata, Kamui Kobayashi, Kazuki Nakajima…Ayao Komatsu…and Gene Haas.

Haas team principal Komatsu and team owner Haas are the odd ones out in that list of past and present Japanese racing drivers - but at 72 years old, Gene Haas is the year’s most unusual F1 debutant.

Both are driving older Haas F1 cars at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this week, with Komatsu running up the hill in last year’s VF-24 on Thursday and Haas - F1’s only individual team owner - getting behind the wheel of the 2023 car on Friday.

They are sharing duties with Nakajima, who is vice chairman of Haas technical partner Toyota’s racing division in Europe, as well as Haas F1 drivers Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon.

It is all a consequence of that Toyota tie-up, which has given Haas the capacity to run old cars for the first time this year. This has led to Miyata and ex-F1 driver Kobayashi driving in TPC tests (Testing of Previous Cars) this year, as well as Hirakawa becoming Haas reserve driver. But it also facilitates demonstration runs and private events: like Goodwood, which Haas is attending for the first time.

To mark that occasion, in its 10th year of F1 and having hit 200 races at the Canadian Grand Prix in June, Komatsu asked Haas if he would be interested in driving one of his team’s cars for the first time. The two drove together in a private shakedown at Silverstone in advance of the Goodwood run, and were both driving at the festival on Friday.

“It's very fitting,” said Komatsu. “And the fact that we actually haven't been there before means that it's even more significant.

“And Gene, he’s the founder and the sole owner of the team. What a moment for him to drive his car. He owns everything of this team. He's not some sort of corporate or private equity investor. He owns the team. He's so passionate about it. But then sometimes you don't see him very often.

“I actually asked him in Miami: ‘Gene this is our celebration, your celebration, this is your team, can you drive? I think it'd be really, really good that you enjoy what you created and what you supported for 10 years.’

“He was a bit nervous, but he said, ‘Yeah, I'll do it’. And I said, ‘OK, great. So let's do it properly.’ So we did a shakedown using the Stowe circuit, we did several outings. He was bit nervous to start off with.

“Of course, you expect that, but every time he went out, you can see more confidence, he was getting on power a bit more, coming back with more smile on his face. It's great. At the end of the day, he was full of smiles, and he just thanked everyone individually and shook everyone's hand.

“It's really great to see, even people internally, they don't see Gene very often, so for them to experience [themselves] ‘wow, Ayao tells me that Gene is a passionate guy but he really is’ - it's great.”

Haas’s interest in his F1 team seems to have come full circle. It took a massive commitment to enter in the first place, but after a few years he developed an apathy for it. There was a disconnect between what he thought it should be achieving and what was realistic to expect - although there were times when it fell short even of the latter.

Combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of the team seemed in serious jeopardy. Haas himself did not want to put in what was required to take it to the next level. That led directly to dumping two experienced drivers, taking on a pairing of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin - and the latter’s Uralkali money as title sponsor. As a team it has never been lower in performance or morale than across 2020 and 2021.

Since then, though, it has rebounded. Though the Guenther Steiner era ended after 2023 as he and Gene Haas had irreconcilable views on the level the team was at and what was required to make progress, the move to make Komatsu team principal instead has resulted in a clear upward trend on-track and seems to have created more harmony off it, too.

Haas himself certainly seems to be more invested again, and no longer sounds bored with his own team - to the point he has repeatedly rebuffed offers to sell it and “got even annoyed that these guys are asking so many times”.

“He's so engaged now and then he understands the details as well,” said Komatsu.

“He's always been very, very passionate about the sport and the result. He always wants us to improve, which is what we need from the owner. He was always behind us.

“I don't know everything, but the last 18 months, he had numerous offers to buy the team. He's not interested, and he's very enjoying being the owner of the F1 team, currently one out of 10, from next year, one out of 11. That's such a privileged position to be in.

“He came in at the time where F1 wasn't like this. And he stuck with us during such a difficult period of COVID. And now he's enjoying it. This is part of the reason why I really wanted him to drive in Goodwood - ‘come on, you've done this, you built this team up, supporting us all the way through, just enjoy it’.

“This year, when he came to Miami, I can see that he was actually enjoying just being there. He always asks lots of technical questions because he's interested. That hasn't changed. But then on top of that, he was just enjoying the occasion.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to ask him if he wants to drive in Goodwood’. And he didn't know much about Goodwood, but now he's driving, he read about it, and he's really excited.

“For him to experience things like that, it’s another dimension to his life, isn't it?”

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