Former Mercedes race engineer Jock Clear has revealed that a difficult working relationship with Nico Rosberg during the German driver's early days with the team justified the pair's split.
As a former BAR and Brawn engineer, Clear stayed on at the Brackley squad when the team was acquired by Mercedes at the end of its championship winning season in 2009.
The Briton, who famously engineered Jacques Villeneuve at Williams during the Canadian's successful run to the title in 1997, was then assigned to Rosberg who along with Michael Schumacher formed Mercedes driver pairing from 2010 to the end of 2012.
But Clear's relationship with Rosberg came to an end after just one season at the instigation of team boss Ross Brawn.
"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.
"But, he'd come from Williams where he had a really good 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 he 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!"
Indeed, as Villeneuve's race engineer in '97, Clear had witnessed up close Schumacher's controversial move on the Williams driver at the last race in Jerez, where the Canadian sealed the title.
But after Clear moved to the other side of the Mercedes garage, he developed a productive working relationship with the seven-time world champion.
"I was so pleasantly surprised to find how enjoyable it was to work with Michael, that those couple of years were actually a pleasure," Clear remembered. "And yeah, he didn't get frustrated at all. And we all enjoyed it," he added.
"I think people could already see that the team was growing with him, Michael wasn't delivering perhaps what he delivered in 2004, 2005, but the team was growing with him.
"And that's what people could see and he was enjoying that he was having an impact."
Clear's stint with Mercedes came to an end in 2014, after which the 57-year-old joined Ferrari where he later worked alongside Charles Leclerc.
Clear remains a member of the Scuderia as a driver coach, looking after Leclerc but also helping guide the efforts of Ferrari's junior drivers, including Haas' Mick Schumacher.
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