MEXICO CITY – The first-year Haas team principal reiterated Formula 1 the team is not for sale even though new technical partner Toyota wanted to buy the organization.

Ayao Komatsu rejected the idea on Friday at Mexico City Grand Prix when asked if Toyota had first right of purchase should team owner Gene Haas decide he wanted to sell the team. Some believe the 71-year-old is retiring from racing after announcing in June that Stewart-Haas Racing, which Haas jointly owns, LESS from four Cup Series cars to one at the end of this NASCAR season.

“For starters, Gene isn’t selling the team. Every time they ask me, “How can we do better? What can we do to make the car go faster? He is not interested in selling,” Komatsu said. “I think he had so many offers, actually, but he turned down every single one of them. So the team is not for sale.”

Michael Andretti made several offers to buy Haas in his failed bid to acquire an F1 team, and Haas has consistently maintained that it is not pulling out of the series, despite its team being among the least competitive on the grid.

Haas is seventh out of 10 teams in this year’s standings in the F1 constructors’ championship.

Toyota announced two weeks ago that it was coming back to F1 after 15 years as technical partner of Haas. Haas debuted the Toyota brand on its cars at last week’s United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, and Toyota said its racing division will provide “design, technical and manufacturing services” to the North Carolina team .

However, this does not mean a return for the Toyota team that competed in F1 for eight seasons until 2009.

Haas will still race under its own name and Toyota will not supply engines as it did for other teams in the 2000s. Haas already has an agreement to use Ferrari engines until 2028 as part of an existing partnership from the first season of Haas’ F1 since 2016. Haas previously extended its contract with Ferrari in July to cover new F1 regulations coming in 2026.

The deal extends Haas’ strategy of relying on external partners for much of the work that other F1 teams do in-house. Since its debut in 2016, the American team has worked closely with Ferrari – even basing its design office in Ferrari’s hometown of Maranello, Italy – and relies on Italian race car builder Dallara to build its cars .

“Ferrari and Dallara have been great partners since day one. And then as you can see, you know, Ferrari, obviously, the PU partner, gearbox, suspension, hydraulics – those areas, obviously, Toyota don’t touch,” Komatsu said. “The area that Toyota is touching is the area that we don’t get support from Ferrari and that we are doing on our own. That really adds to our ability and then a chance to understand the car better so we can make our team more competitive.”

___

AP Auto Racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing