F1 icon refused to work with Michael Schumacher and this is why

Jock Clear in the paddock for Ferrari — Photo: © IMAGO

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F1 icon refused to work with Michael Schumacher

There was plenty of tension behind the scenes at this F1 team

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Wednesday 22 April 2026 21:14 Updated: 21:23

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Lewis Hamilton's former Mercedes performance engineer and F1 icon Jock Clear has shed light on why he refused to work with seven-time champion, Michael Schumacher.

Clear's extensive F1 career spans across three decades, with his 30 years of experience at the centre of the pinnacle of motorsport allowing the Brit to work for both the Silver Arrows and Ferrari.

Up until 2026, Clear was a driver coach for Charles Leclerc, but has now departed the Scuderia's ranks to enjoy a slower pace of life, but still within touching distance of Maranello.

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Having held senior roles at Ferrari for over a decade, Clear became a stalwart of the sport, and even though he is best known for having a positive influence on champion drivers such as Hamilton and Jacques Villeneuve, he didn't always take such a favourable view of Schumacher.

Clear worked closely with some of the German icon's biggest racing rivals before being paired up with Schumacher at Mercedes, something which meant he had a distorted view of the former Ferrari legend, having never gotten to know him personally until they were brought together at the Brackley-based outfit.

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Jock Clear explains Michael Schumacher feud

In a recent appearance on Peter Windsor's YouTube F1 Livestream, Clear explained just what triggered the complete reversal of his negative view of Schumacher after the seven-time champion decided to make his F1 comeback with Mercedes, where Clear worked at the time, in 2010.

"Just an absolute pleasure," Clear said about working with Schumacher at Mercedes. "And I knew Michael reasonably well because of our battles in '97 but we spoke to each other and we were enemies.

"And honestly I had a pretty poor opinion of him for a few years after that. What he did in ‘97, what he did in ‘94 don’t sit well with me. I’d have conversations with people and they’d say ‘yeah but anyone would do that in his situation'.

"Maybe he had a problem in that Ferrari in Jerez so it was his only chance to win was to take Jacques out. In '94, he knew he was going to get overtaken by Damon so he had to take him out.

"'Any driver who’s worth their salt would do the same', they’d say, and I’d argue ‘no they wouldn’t. Jacques wouldn’t have done it and the drivers I’ve known since, a lot of them wouldn't have done it.' Lewis wouldn’t have done it, for sure.

"And so I had a pretty poor view of his sportsmanship and when he came to Mercedes, Nico and Michael were coming (into the team) and Ross (Brawn) brought us into a meeting and said ‘I guess we need to sort out who’s going to race engineer who'.

"And I said ‘I’m not going to race engineer Michael that’s for sure' and so that decision was pretty easy, I had Nico [Rosberg] and Shov [Andrew Shovlin] had Michael."

Clear's unexpected Schumacher U-turn

F1 journalist Windsor then interrupted Clear's explanation to highlight how his working relationship with Nico Rosberg was also hardly ideal, to which the ex-Mercedes star responded: "That's Right... we just didn't click."

"Nico and I just didn't understand each other at all, we just didn't have any synergy," he continued.

Little did he know, this was for the best, and after conversations with Mercedes' Ross Brawn, it was none other than Schumacher who, in Clear's words, piped up to suggest: "If Nico doesn't want him I'll have him."

As a result, Peter Bonnington (now known as Bono) joined the squad to be mentored by Clear, who partnered up with Schumacher for the 2011 and 2012 campaigns as his performance engineer.

"We got on famously we really did. It was a great triumph for those couple of years with myself and Bono and Michael... it was a real eye-opener to see how a seven-time champion goes about the business. He just knew how to deal with people."

Explaining his surprising switch in opinion towards the F1 legend, Clear added: "Going from not having a great deal of respect for him as a sporting player, that became completely irrelevant in the following years because I had a huge amount of respect for him as a man, as a human being. He is a lovely, lovely human being. He knows how to treat people. Huge amount of respect for people that do a good job for him and treat him well and he treats them well and that's how it should be."

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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F1 Mercedes Jock Clear