NOVEMBER 26, 2007

Well done Dr Jock

Jock Clear, a senior race engineer with Honda Racing F1 has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Scotland's Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh from which he graduated with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering in 1987. A year later he joined Lola Cars in Huntingdon and worked with F1 Project Leader Chris Murphy designing cars for the Larrousse F1 team and after a year was spotted by John Barnard and was hired by Benetton to be the head of its composites. In 1991 he departed to join Leyton House Racing but was then offered the chance to rejoin Murphy at Team Lotus, where he started his race engineering career with Johnny Herbert in 1994. When the team closed down Clear went to Williams and worked with David Coulthard but then began a relationship with Jacques Villeneuve which culminated in the Canadian winning the 1997 World Championship. When Villeneuve left Williams to join British American Racing at the end of 1998 Clear went with him and has stayed with the team ever since and now acts as Rubens Barrichello's race engineer.