Jacques Villeneuve joined Williams in 1996 and Clear was his race engineer; the Canadian won the world championship the following year under Clear's guidance. When Villeneuve moved to British American Racing for the 1999 season, his engineer followed suit. The relationship continued until the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix, when Villeneuve walked out on the eve of the race. Takuma Sato took up the vacant seat and drove to sixth position on his racing debut with the team. Clear worked with Sato again in 2004–2005 and then with Rubens Barrichello from 2006 to 2009. After the team became Brawn GP in 2009, Barrichello won the European and Italian Grands Prix and finished in third place in the World Championship.