F1 | Team Principal: this is why it is a transformative role

With his two years of service in Aston Martin, Mike Krack occupies third position in the longevity ranking in the role of team principal, preceded only by leader Christian Horner (who is entering his twentieth season at the helm of Red Bull Racing) and Toto Wolff, in office since 2013 and fresh from renewal until the end of 2026.

There would be nothing strange if it weren't for the fact that Krack recently celebrated his second 'birthday' in the role, made official on 14 January 2022. In the last thirteen months, seven teams have decided to change the probably most central figure of all within a team, a curious trend that has no precedent in Formula 1.

But what is the cause of this sudden need to resort to new professional profiles in a role that in the past has always been characterized by great stability? Is it a generational change or is there something more? There are more than one reasons and they have little to do with length of service, a case in which only Franz Tost falls, determined to take a step back after eighteen seasons at the helm of AlpaTauri.

One of the aspects that has become evident in recent seasons is the change in the organizational charts at the top of the teams. For many years the team principal was the absolute manager of the team, with tasks ranging from the choice of drivers, to relations with sponsors, to the management of the main problems of the team and to planning investments in the medium and long term. In fact a 'one-man show', on whose desk all the crucial choices for managing a team passed.

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Zak Brown, CEO McLaren Racing

In recent years, and in particular in the post-Covid period, several teams have entrusted the highest level tasks to a CEO, as in the case of Zak Brown at McLaren, Martin Whitmarsh at Aston Martin, Peter Bayer at AlphaTauri and Andreas Seidl at Sauber. They have the task of managing the entire 'corporate' part of their respective teams, which includes commercial relationships with sponsors, relationships with technical partners, driver choices and investments.

The figure of the team principal today is required to have a focused role in the ordinary management of the team, and the change in tasks has also led to a change in the professional profile required.

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Ayao Komatsu, new Haas F1 principal team

This explains the promotions in the role of team principal of engineers with a technical background or in any case of figures with operational experience within the teams. Mike Krack, Andrea Stella, James Vowles, Laurent Mekies and lastly Ayao Komatsu (an engineer who boasts seven years of experience on the race track within Haas) are different figures from those who preceded them, because their tasks are different trust.

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Bruno Famin, Alpine team principal

Even in teams that have not made recent changes to their organizational chart, tasks are not always in the hands of a single person. In Red Bull, driver management is entrusted to Helmut Marko, and also in Alpine the team principal, Bruno Famin who is an engineer, shares far-reaching decisions with CEO Philippe Krief, who has the final say.

The fragmentation of tasks works in favor of the owners, who fear possible resignations to a lesser extent. The centralizing figures who have been in vogue for decades were mostly the founders of their own teams, but the scenario has changed drastically, and today those who own a Formula 1 team want to minimize the risks, including those of resignations in strategic roles.

Long-term team principals only Wolff and Horner