“Nico and I didn’t get on particularly well”– Ex-Mercedes race engineer recalls poor relationship with Nico Rosberg

“Nico and I didn’t get on particularly well”– Ex- Mercedes race engineer Jock Clear talks about poor relations with Nico Rosberg.

Former Mercedes race engineer reveals he had a poor working relationship with Nico Rosberg during the German driver’s initial days in the Silver Arrows, which was the main reason behind their eventual split.

Clear back then had a huge reputation who famously engineered Jacques Villeneuve at Williams during the Canadian’s successful run to the title in 1997, and then became a part of Michael Schumacher and Rosberg era in Mercedes.

Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Jacques Villeneuve – Jock Clear has played a key role in the development of several F1 world champions

And he’s this week’s guest on the F1 #BeyondTheGrid podcast – available on podcast platforms now, and right here! 🎧⬇️#F1

— Formula 1 (@F1) August 11, 2021

“Nico won’t mind me saying this,” said Clear, talking to F1’s Tom Clarkson on the latter’s Beyond the Grid podcast. “I engineered Nico in in 2010, opposite Michael.”

“Then I went over to the other side of the table. Nico and I didn’t get on particularly well, just as a race engineer/driver. We actually get on very well now and we still stay in touch.”

“He’s been very helpful to me over the years since, in talking about some of the driver psychology things. So actually, that relationship improved.”

Got the opportunity to work with the GOAT

Though Clear reveals the truthful revelation by Ross Brawn later, it only worked out in his favour, as he got to work with Schumacher after dropping Rosberg’s camp.

“But, he’d come from Williams where he had an excellent relationship with Tony Ross [who would later Rosberg at Mercedes during his championship year].

“And so Nico and I didn’t get on famously. And similarly, Michael’s engineer at the time [Andrew Shovlin] and didn’t get on particularly well. So Ross [Brawn] had a little bit of a rethink and said would I mind not working with Nico anymore?”

“Because Nico didn’t like me, and could I go work with Michael. So I said, ‘Yeah, absolutely’. I said, we’ll try and forget about ’97, we’ll try not to bring that up too often!”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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