{"id":376267,"date":"2025-12-28T15:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/376267\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T15:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:16:07","slug":"haas-addresses-f1-driver-line-up-options-as-toyota-influence-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/376267\/","title":{"rendered":"Haas addresses F1 driver line-up options as Toyota influence grows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has revealed he is open to the possibility of having a wider partnership with a Toyota driver following the Japanese manufacturer&#8217;s increased presence at the team.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Toyota announced it would be Haas&#8217; title sponsor for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>The development comes over one year after the two parties struck up a technical partnership.<\/p>\n<p>Komatsu has denied that the increased investment from Toyota<a href=\"https:\/\/racingnews365.com\/haas-issue-response-to-future-f1-speculation-after-major-toyota-announcement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> is the start of a move towards a complete takeover<\/a>, insisting the cooperation centres around the training of team personnel.<\/p>\n<p>When asked by media including RacingNews365 if Toyota has ever raised the topic of fielding a driver full-time in F1, Komatsu replied: \u201cYeah, of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir goal \u2013 one of many goals they have, is to, like we said with developing people, one of them is drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Toyota has a large pool of drivers at its disposal across various categories, including the World Endurance Championship and Super Formula.<\/p>\n<p>However, Komatsu asserted that performance will always take priority as he insisted it will not field a driver it does not believe can make a tangible impact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut [the] main thing is, performance is first,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnybody who gets in our race car, it has to be the best choice in terms of performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all agree on that one, 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen people will say, \u2018Oh, Toyota\u2019s just buying a seat with money.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not what Akio-san is doing. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re doing. We always pick drivers who will deliver performance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has revealed he is open to the possibility of having a wider partnership&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-376267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1-calendar","12":"tag-f1-live","13":"tag-f1-results","14":"tag-f1-standings","15":"tag-ferrari","16":"tag-formula-1","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-max-verstappen","19":"tag-motor","20":"tag-motor-sports","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-motosport","23":"tag-motosports","24":"tag-racing","25":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376267","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=376267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}