Ferrari to enhance veteran engineer Jock Clear's driver coach role for 2021

Veteran engineer Jock Clear will take on an enhanced driver coaching role with Ferrari in 2021, with Team Principal Mattia Binotto saying his remit now extends to the Ferrari Driver Academy (FDA).

Clear, who has previously worked with David Coulthard, Jacques Villeneuve and Rubens Barrichello, joined Ferrari’s senior trackside engineering group from Mercedes in 2015 and when Charles Leclerc joined for 2019, part of his focus was on the Monegasque’s development.

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The FDA is in a good place, with Mick Schumacher making the step up to F1 with Haas after winning the F2 title, F2 runner up Callum Illot named Ferrari’s test driver and Robert Shwarztman among the favourites for the 2021 F2 title – and Ferrari want to continue the momentum, hence Clear’s expanded role.

“Jock Clear is a great person and great professional, and has been in Ferrari for many years,” said Binotto. “His role in 2020 was being driver coach. The driver coach is an engineer who is supporting the drivers in order to perform in terms of driving to their best. He looks at their lines, looks at the way they are braking through the corner, accelerating, and managing tyres.

“They are there to support the race engineers, performance engineers and drivers, to make sure that the driver is developing well.

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“We had some chats with Jock in the past weeks and we would like to develop him even more as a driver coach, not only for Charles but looking ahead at the future to our own young driver line-up we have got at the Ferrari Driver Academy.

“We've got Mick in Haas starting his experience in F1, but we've got still young drivers competing in F2 - like for example Robert Shwartzman. And there is Callum Ilott, who will be our test driver, will do simulator, and will do free practices.

“So the role of Jock will be to assist all these drivers to develop themselves as drivers, and try to exploit the most of their potential.”