BEYOND THE GRID: Jock Clear on his collaboration with Mick Schumacher – and why rookie Haas surprised him in 2021

He’s worked with Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Jacques Villeneuve, Nico Rosberg and a plethora of other drivers, but Jock Clear’s latest role is to help a new generation of talent, including Charles Leclerc and Mick Schumacher. In the last Beyond the grid podcast, Clear talks about young Schumacher’s greatest qualities – and how the Haas rookie fared in his first season.

Clear’s current tenure as a senior performance engineer at Ferrari previously focused on Leclerc’s career, but the veteran engineer’s tenure has been broadened to help the Ferrari Driver Academy team grow – including pilots such as Callum Ilott, Robert Shwartzman and Schumacher. And Clear said Michael’s son, who entered F1 alongside teammate Nikita Mazepin for 2021, “surprised” him this year.

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When asked if he was happy with Mick’s progress, Clear replied, “Yes. And a little surprised. Obviously we’ve been working with him for some time now for Ferrari in the Young Driver Academy or the Ferrari Driver Academy. We have been working with him for some time and we know him quite well.

“I’m pretty impressed with his rock-solid speed this year, to be honest. People said to me at the start of the year: “Yeah but how is he going to do against Mazepin?”, And I said that I wouldn’t be surprised if Mazepin started to overqualify him several times because that Mick takes a while to get up to speed – but in fact, he’s not. “

Driver coach and former Barrichello race engineer Takuma Sato and David Coulthard – and Michael Schumacher’s performance engineer at Mercedes – added that Mick Schumacher has a number of traits that would come in handy across the board.

Comparing him to his seven-time champion dad Michael, Clear said of Mick, “He looks so much like his dad in his manners and his accent and that’s pretty nice in itself. It reminds me of good days. I really enjoyed working with Michael.

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“Mick is such a pleasant young man to deal with as well. It is not given; there are a lot of racing drivers, they are successful, they do what they do… Mick is just a very, very pleasant young man to be around in every way. So whatever he does for a living, he will be served very well by just being a high profile guy and getting along with people.

Listen to the full episode of Beyond the grid with Jock for more about his experience with Mick and Michael Schumacher, as well as his years with Jacques Villeneuve and the inner story of the infamous Jerez ’97 Clash… Find it in the player above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.