(Motorsport-Total.com) – Haas Formula 1 team principal Ayao Komatsu has revealed the story of how a chance encounter with a young Takuma Sato and a borrowed quad ultimately led to his career in the pinnacle of motorsport.
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During his university days, Komatsu was just starting out in British grassroots motorsport and helped run a team in the British Touring Car Championship for local driver Andrew Deahanti. At a race weekend in Silverstone, Komatsu spotted a young Japanese driver passing by on a moped in racing overalls.
The driver was Sato, who at the time was competing for Diamond Racing in the national class of the British Formula 3 Championship. When Komatsu’s touring car team unexpectedly needed a quad, he approached his compatriot to borrow one.
The borrowed quad
After returning the vehicle, Komatsu decided to stay to watch Sato’s race.
“I remember one day when we were at Silverstone. I was under the car changing the stabilizer, and then I literally just looked up, and there was this Japanese kid on a moped in a racing suit. So of course we greeted each other. You didn’t see many Japanese people there back then,” he told Essential F1.
“And then I didn’t think much of it, but when we went to our race with this British touring car team, we didn’t have a quad. So I said, ‘Ah, he said he races in British Formula 3, he must have a quad.’ So I went to borrow the quad from his team, Diamond Racing.”
Japanese among themselves
“So I borrowed a quad, we did our race, and then returned the quad. I said, ‘Okay, his race is soon, so I’ll just go and watch.’ He was racing in the national class that year.”
“There was this guy named Martin O’Connell, an Irish guy. He was very good, he won all the national class races, but he had no money. But then I watched Takuma at Silverstone. He beat him straight away.”
“I said, ‘Wow, you know, you’re fast. You beat Martin O’Connell. He beat everyone.’ Then Takuma said, ‘Really? I have the next race at Thruxton. Do you want to come and watch?'”
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The years of learning
“And then I watched at Thruxton, and we talked and found out he was exactly one year younger than me. He said, ‘Next year I’ll race in the championship class,’ and I said, ‘Next year I’ll start my PhD, I’m interested in this and that, should we do something together?'”
Komatsu revealed how this led to his career in Formula 1, adding: “The next year in British Formula 3, I participated in every single test and most races again and did many things. As part of my PhD, I wrote things about simulation optimization.”
“But I tested that at the track with Takuma and actually collected real data – tire data, damper data. I worked with the Dallara engineers to get chassis data. So all this combination of the theoretical side, the mathematical side, and then the practical side, and then working directly with drivers like Takuma. And in the first year, his teammate was Ben Collins, ‘The Stig’.”
The job Komatsu didn’t want
“And the second year was amazing. I didn’t do much in my second year because I really wanted to focus on my PhD again, but it was Takuma and Anthony Davidson.”
As his PhD was coming to an end, Komatsu was looking for a job.
“I couldn’t find a job, and the offer I eventually got was from the German Formula 3 team of Colin Kolles as a race engineer. I remember coming back from Germany, having met him, and he made me an offer. It was great, I had a job as a race engineer in German Formula 3. Back then it was competitive, but I didn’t necessarily want to do it.”
The path to Honda
“Then when I came back to the UK, my phone rang, and it was Takuma. Takuma said, ‘How did your interview go?’ I said, ‘It’s okay, he gave me a job, but I don’t necessarily want it.'”
“Then he said, ‘Oh, if you’re still open, Tanaka-san from HRD wants to talk to you, are you sure?’ So I went to Tanaka-san at HRD, and Otmar [Szafnauer] was the vice president, and they gave me a job in 2003. Takuma was then a test driver. In 2004, I then moved to BAR Honda.”
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