MOM is out and Boost Mode in as key F1 2026 terms defined<\/a><\/p>\nAsked if he had been asked by Toyota about potentially having one of its drivers in a race seat in the future, Komatsu told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media: \u201cYeah, of course. You know, their goal \u2013 one of many goals they have, is to, like we said with developing people, one of them is drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut [the] main thing is, performance is fast. You know, anybody who gets in our race car has to be the best choice in terms of performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all agree on that one, you know, even from Akio-san [Akio Toyoda, Toyota chairman], even though he wanted, let\u2019s say, a Japanese driver from his academy, it becomes a joke if we\u2019re putting that driver when he\u2019s not good enough, right? Then people will say, \u2018Oh, Toyota\u2019s just buying a seat with money.\u2019 That\u2019s not what Akio-san is doing. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re doing. We always pick drivers due to performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
One driver on the market in 2026 will be Yuki Tsunoda, with the now-former Red Bull driver having moved into a test and reserve role for the upcoming season, after being replaced at the team by Isack Hadjar.<\/p>\n
Asked if he would like to work with his compatriot in future, Komatsu replied: \u201cI can\u2019t comment on his future, but obviously, he\u2019s not our driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut [for] \u201927, I think we have to focus on \u201926 with our drivers and then, with brand new regulations, I think most of the drivers knew that obviously, as they want to see how the \u201926 [season] pans out, and they wanted to pick a better team for \u201927, that\u2019s why the driver market is going to be so open for \u201927.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, to put ourselves in a better position, our best position, [the] important thing is we\u2019ve got to have a competitive \u201926 season. That\u2019s our focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The livery of Haas\u2019 2026 challenger, the VF-26, will be unveiled on January 23rd, ahead of the start of the first pre-season test in Barclona three days later.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Mat Coch and Thomas Maher<\/p>\n
Read next:\u00a0Andrea Stella reveals how Lando Norris \u2018elevated his sense of status\u2019 in Max Verstappen fight<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu explained that Toyota will want a say in Haas\u2019 driver line-ups in future,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,5328,818,44,85],"class_list":["post-373744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-haas","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}