F1 champion's 'madness' reaction: 'We're going to start our own team'

Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard lift up Jacques Villeneuve after he becomes 1997 world champion — Photo: © IMAGO

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F1 champion's 'madness' reaction: 'We're going to start our own team'

Jacques Villeneuve was a big player in the BAR story

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 28 April 2026 11:57

An F1 legend has revealed a world champion's reaction to starting their own team.

Jock Clear, who until recently was the driver coach for Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, has had a highly successful career as an engineer in F1, working with a number of huge teams including Benetton, Williams, Mercedes and Ferrari.

But the Englishman was also part of a hugely ambitious project which set out in 1999, the British American Racing (BAR) team.

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BAR took over from the struggling Tyrrell team following the 1998 season, and was headed up by Craig Pollock and 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who left Williams to drive for the new team.

Clear was Villeneuve's race engineer at Williams, and followed the Canadian to BAR, while Pollock was Villeneuve's manager at the time.

Now, Clear has revealed how the initial discussions about forming a new team went between himself, Pollock and Villeneuve.

"It was Pollock's idea in fairness to Craig," Clear told Peter Windsor's YouTube channel.

"Yeah, it was. And honestly, this sounds like it's a good story, but we did sit down and have dinner with Craig. Myself and Jacques [Villeneuve] and Craig one night, and Craig said, 'We're going to start our own team.'

"Jacques and I literally laughed and said, 'Don't be stupid, Craig. You can't start your own team. That's just madness.'

"And of course, the rest is history. It was Craig's idea and Jacques took quite a lot of persuading, but without a doubt, without Jacques backing it and being in it and bought into it in terms of emotion and his efforts, it would never have got off the ground."

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Did BAR win a world championship?

BAR experienced small levels of success throughout their six seasons in F1. Villeneuve raced with the team right up until 2003, claiming two podiums in that time, before they switched to the driver pairing of Jenson Button and Takuma Sato for 2004.

It was that season which then saw their most successful ever season in the sport, claiming 11 podiums and finishing a very distant second in the constructors' championship standings.

BAR never won a grand prix nor a world championship, and were eventually taken over by Honda in 2006.

Clear continued in his position as a race engineer with Honda, working with Sato and Rubens Barrichello before the team became Brawn GP, and he helped them claim the constructors' championship.

F1 Jacques Villeneuve Jock Clear