Lewis Hamilton insider reveals the biggest difference between him and Michael Schumacher that nobody sees

Lewis Hamilton's former performance engineer at Mercedes, Jock Clear, has revealed the biggest difference between working with him and fellow seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher.

Clear is currently alongside Hamilton at Ferrari as a driver coach, though the 63-year-old is specifically working with Hamilton's team-mate Charles Leclerc. He worked previously as Jacques Villeneuve's race engineer when the Canadian beat Schumacher to the 1997 title, and then as Schumacher's performance engineer at Mercedes between 2011 and 2012.

Clear spent much of his career as part of Honda's various iterations, and was retained by Mercedes when they bought out Brawn GP in 2010 - meaning he worked with both Schumacher, Hamilton and fellow world champion Nico Rosberg while at the Silver Arrows.

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Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher difference revealed

Speaking via BetSelect.co.uk, Clear recalled working alongside Schumacher and Hamilton and, despite their incredible on-track achievements, what separated them off the track.

"I think the commonality is exceptional dedication," he told SPORTbible. "I've worked with Michael and Lewis; that's doing everything you can [as a driver].

"But they're very different to each other. Lewis wears his heart on his sleeve, Michael didn't. You see Lewis's emotions; you see when he's upset, you see when he's happy. Michael was much more private.

"What works for Lewis works for Lewis, and what works for Michael works for Michael. Both can bring a team on, build a team around themselves, in different ways. When you've got seven championships, you're at a level nobody else has been at, and that brings a level of credibility and respectability. There's a bit of stardust. I saw it when I worked with Senna, and I certainly saw it when I worked with Michael. I saw the same when I started working with Hamilton. There's a sparkle there. It's almost intangible."

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'I don't think he's changed that much...' - Jock Clear on Lewis Hamilton

Clear noted that, since the very beginning of his time working with Hamilton in 2012 to the modern day, he has noticed very little change in the seven-time world champion - despite his success.

"I think what we've seen this year is the benefit of his input into creating a more unified culture," he claims. "When Lewis arrived at Mercedes, he came into a culture that was already growing in a very organic and healthy way, and he immediately demonstrated that he could bring a team on and build a team around him in his own way. I think he's doing something similar at Ferrari now.

"And reassuringly, I don't think he's changed that much as a person. When I last worked with him at Mercedes, he'd only won one championship [at McLaren, 2008]. Since then, he's won six more, and you might think that could have changed him, but I don't sense that.

"He's almost like a Disney character - he doesn't age. He's still a fun character, still enjoys the same things and brings the same energy. I think after a few months at Ferrari, he simply began to fully appreciate the magnitude of the culture and what this really looked like."

Hamilton's current team is headed by his race engineer Carlo Santi, who initially stepped into the role on an interim basis after Riccardo Adami was redeployed to a senior role as part of Ferrari's driver academy.

Cedric Michel-Grosjean, who was Oscar Piastri's lead trackside performance engineer at McLaren in 2025, joined Hamilton's team at the beginning of the year. It was initially expected that he would become Hamilton's race engineer, though team principal Frederic Vasseur said in March that there were no plans to make the switch in the near future.