Haas appoints Andrea De Zordo as Technical Director

Having unveiled the new look of their 2024 F1 car, Haas have confirmed Andrea De Zordo as their new Technical Director and Damien Brayshaw as their new performance chief following their winter reshuffle.

Haas F1 Team showed off the livery of their 2024 F1 car, the VF-24 on Friday afternoon with the new car set to feature the traditional black, red and white colour scheme.

The American team has made key changes to its structure over the winter after team owner Gene Haas ousted former team principal Guenther Steiner. The Italian's role was taken over by former engineering director Ayao Komatsu. At the same time, the team also confirmed the departure of technical director Simone Resta without naming the Italian's successor.

Haas have now revealed that Andrea De Zordo will take on the role of technical director. The Italian formerly worked for Minardi, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari before joining Haas.

Speaking of the new appointment, Komatsu added: “Our new Technical Director is Andrea De Zordo. He was the Chief Designer previously and is a very technical person. His communication is good, he’s very engaged and he listens to people, so I’m very happy about that appointment. We are now recruiting for our Chief Designer, but I believe we have good internal candidates, so we’ll look to promote internally.

“Another key position is the Performance Director, this is a position that wasn’t there before, but we’ve created it putting Damien Brayshaw, previously the Head of Vehicle Performance Group, into the role. He will oversee and drive the direction for the upgrades together with the aero department and all the other functions that analyze the full-scale car, which is trackside engineering, the Vehicle Performance Group, Tire Group etc. They’re the key changes – we’re getting everyone on board, talking together, and be a part of steering the ship.”

Komatsu commenced his new work as Team Principal at the start of January, having previously managed the engineering department as Chief Race Engineer and subsequently Director of Engineering.

Speaking of his new role, Komatsu said: “It has impacted things, as it was announced on January 10, and we’re running our car for the first time on February 11 – that’s a pretty short timeframe. However, in terms of car build and preparation for the test, it wasn’t a problem operationally.

"It wasn’t just my role, we had a Technical Director leave as well, so there were two significant vacancies to fill. We formalized and communicated this structural change as soon as we could. The timing of this transition period was not ideal; however, I’ve been very impressed with the maturity of everyone’s reaction. Thanks to this, we were able to keep the disruption to the minimum. Now we’ve clarified the structure, we should be full steam ahead.”