Jacques Villeneuve's decision to withdraw from the final race of the 2003 season following his team's announcement of replacing him next year with Takuma Sato have left all his fans and friends confused and suspicious. Surely the Canadian would not have chosen to leave this way? It was a painful end to what has been a dream shared by Villeneuve and a few close friends. One of those closest to the former World Champion is his race engineer Jock Clear, who endured a difficult and confusing weekend at Suzuka and is still feeling the pain of a plan gone wrong. Atlas F1's Will Gray sat down with Clear on Sunday night for a frank interview on his past, present - and maybe future - life alongside Jacques. Exclusive for Atlas F1

Call it conspiracy or call it fate. Call it insensitive of him or insensitive of them. Call it what you will, but the failure of Jacques Villeneuve, by force or by choice, to appear in the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix was a sad and disappointing end to a relationship lived in public but hidden in the shadows.

Never one to shy away from controversy, it is perhaps appropriate that the Formula One career of the troublesome and discordant but equally popular and endearing Villeneuve would end, if indeed it has, in such a high-profile two finger salute to the members of a family that deserted him.

That was the way it happened if Villeneuve did indeed sit in his Tokyo hotel room, after spending two days on public relations assignment for the team, and made the decision to call it a day. It was a bold decision but one, typically, that was made from both the heart and the head.

"I tried to change his mind, I tried and tried," admitted Jock Clear, Villeneuve's long-term friend and career-long race engineer, after seeing the Canadian's replacement at Suzuka Taluma Sato finish sixth and provide the perfect answer to the critics who claimed BAR-Honda were wrong to hire him for the 2004 season.

It was pretty clear that Suzuka was the best place for Sato to show what he can do. Villeneuve knew as much, but there was nothing Clear could say that would change his mind. "I think one of the reasons that this happened is because this is the straw that broke the camel's back after five years," he explained.

There are, of course, still theories that it was not Villeneuve's choice to quit before the race at Suzuka, a circuit where Sato was able to match the Canadian's best result of the season. But they have been firmly denied by the team, a team that pronounced themselves "open and honest" at the start of the year.

Seemingly, BAR-Honda chief David Richards should be believed when he says that Sato's arrival as test driver this year did not include a guaranteed race drive in 2004 and that Villeneuve was not asked to make way for the Japanese driver before Suzuka, before the Canadian's manager Craig Pollock announced of his decision to pull out of the final race.

Sato's comments, however, make it difficult to do so. He was already quoted by a Scottish newspaper as saying he would be racing in Suzuka before the United States Grand Prix, comments which he and the team quickly distanced themselves from but which immediately got the rumour mill running at double speed.

Then, when he was unveiled as the team's 2004 race driver in Tokyo on the Tuesday before the Japanese Grand Prix, he made similar suggestions in his own language when he said: "I hope I can help the team secure fifth in the Constructors' Championship. That is my job for the rest of the season."

The team immediately claimed that his actual true comments had been lost in translation, but it did little to help them. Even Clear, one of the closest friends of Villeneuve, cannot quite accept exactly how the events of Thursday morning unfolded.

Richards said that he had been on the Shinkansen Bullet Train from Tokyo to Narita when he received a call from Pollock informing him that Villeneuve did not feel like racing and had decided not to take part in his sayonara swansong Grand Prix for BAR-Honda.

Sato and his manager Andrew Gilbert Scott said they were called straight after, but had been pre-warned that morning that the Japanese driver might be required to race. Villeneuve has said nothing, apparently because he is not yet allowed to, due to terms within his contract release.

Clear was very hesitant in Suzuka as he carefully picked the right words to explain his views on Villeneuve's departure: "The one thing I can say - and it is not something that Jacques has said, this is purely my opinion - as to why we are in this situation in Suzuka, where he has effectively... whatever the details of it are... I believe that it was at his (long pause) agreement that he didn't drive here.

"Whether it was his idea? Well, I am led to believe that it was actually his offer to not drive here, whatever the detailed facts are, but I know for sure that he wasn't particularly keen to drive here, and it is not just the culmination of one bad year being out-qualified by Jenson Button."

A long-winded and confused comment displaying either a reluctant effort to tow the company line or a failure to believe Villeneuve had let him down. Whatever, it was immediately obvious that Clear, perhaps, did not trust that he had been fed with the full facts. Then again it is, perhaps, not surprising this might be the case considering his continued efforts to fight Villeneuve's cause within the team, and his self admission that he was the only one to do so by the end.

"He is always going to be okay with me because I am his one ally so I know exactly how he views it," Clear said in Suzuka when asked if he had chats with Villeneuve during the season about how he was feeling. "Of course we talked about it. He tells me everything he feels and everything he thinks.

"I know exactly what his feelings are and what his anguish is and what his particular gripes and disappointments are. It is not my place to pass those on, but if he wants to vocalise them then I am sure he will in the near future. All I can say is he is very frustrated.

"It has been very emotional. I was very disappointed that Jacques was not here, not just for myself but for some of the boys as well. He is planning to hold a bit of a party at the end of the year and he is going to fly all the guys out to wherever it is, so he will have his opportunity to say goodbye and say his thanks to what he effectively considered his family. It's disappointing he is not able to do that here."

So, has Clear always been a voice for Villeneuve in discussions? "Oh yeah, massively. Yeah. I have been a voice for him if anybody is interested in listening, but I haven't been involved in any formal discussions [on retaining him for next year]. That is all at board level - or David Richards' level. It is not a technical decision. Obviously we have our opinions on what is best for the team for testing and racing.

"Taku is much, much less experienced and he will need to reach a new level in order to fulfil our expectations. If he performs at the level he was at with Jordan then we will not be satisfied and we will not have made the right decision. But we are confident he will step up and I think all the engineers are confident Taku can offer a great deal with his relationship with Honda."

That, of course, is believed by many to be the reason Sato has arrived at BAR and now stepped up to the race team - especially after Honda and BAR announced in the Tokyo press conference, where the Sato 'secret' was revealed, that they now view themselves as one identity.

The Japanese driver showed plenty of raw speed on his way to winning the 2001 British Formula Three championship and in the following season with Jordan. He bent plenty of cars in the process but he is, quite probably, the best open-wheel racing talent that Japan has ever produced.

He has the belief of a World Champion and that was something that Villeneuve, it appeared by the end, had lost. Not because he thought he could no longer perform at that level but because he thought he no longer had the backing to do so. The hollow promises of early BAR now did not even seem to be on offer.

Much has been made of Richards' relationship with the Canadian driver but it is, as has been previously suggested on Atlas F1, his relationship with Pollock that has riled the BAR-Honda team boss ever since he took over the helm in a shock announcement at the start of last year.

The two relationships are, understandably, something that Clear is not keen to talk about. When asked how much of the downfall was down to the way Richards arrived and the subsequent way he dealt with Villeneuve very publicly about his salary, the response was simple: "I don't know."

He clearly does know. But, as one of BAR-Honda's race engineers, he is quite sensibly uncomfortable with passing comment. What Clear does say, however, was that Villeneuve's ultimate downfall and the emotional acceptance of it in Japan was, in fact, down to his unwavering loyalty to the BAR cause.

"This guy wanted to come here and he wanted to build a team and he wanted to take on Michael Schumacher with his team around him," said Clear. "There aren't many people who are as loyal. He is a true friend and he is one of the most honest and wholesome people I know.

"I admire him 100 percent for his strength of character and his loyalty. And if he gets nothing else out of Formula One, or what has happened in the last year, I think the least people could do is to recognise that that is something that has almost been his downfall.

"The equipment at his disposal has now been left far short of expectation for five years and he never took the opportunity to make that a big issue. He always supported the team, he always stood up for the team and he effectively voted with his feet because he continued to stay at BAR."

If Villeneuve had moved to McLaren in 1999 instead of setting up BAR with Pollock then the story, Clear believes, could have been much different. So, too, could it have been if he had taken up the option to head to Renault in 2001. But he was determined to live the dream at BAR.

Unfortunately for Villeneuve, and for Clear, it became a nightmare from the very beginning. The team's continual failure to perform left Villeneuve frustrated but still determined to believe in the dream. He had tasted the sweet taste of a World Championship and he wanted to taste it again with his own team.

Sure, he was on a nice little earner at BAR, as was Pollock. But that, Clear insists, meant nothing to him. "The money was simply an insurance policy against him throwing away his whole Formula One career on a really high-risk dream," said Clear. "Any suggestion that he did it for the money is just pathetic.

"As time has told, it almost has cost him his Formula One career. I hope it hasn't and I hope he has still got a future but as we stand he hasn't got a seat for next year and those decisions and that loyalty may have cost him his Formula One career.

"I don't think anybody should begrudge him the fact that he was sensible enough to put his insurance policy in place. Had he gone to McLaren in 1999 I am sure he would be a double World Champion at least and he may be a triple World Champion. That would have earned him a lot more money than he has earned now.

"The options at Renault were for exactly the same money that they were at BAR. Anybody who thinks he did this for the money clearly knows nothing about the situation particular to Jacques and knows nothing about Jacques himself. That is what upsets me the most because there aren't that many drivers that would have put up with this level of performance for five years through loyalty."

In Clear's mind, the problems at BAR started in 1999, when the team was set up, because they immediately fell short of their expectations and were left with an impossible fightback that never gained much ground until the start of last year, when a full re-shuffle was undertaken.

Then, admittedly, Villeneuve's dream was faltering. But it all but ended when his former school teacher Pollock was deposed by Richards on the eve of the 2002 season, unbeknown to him until less than 24 hours before the launch of the team's new car for the season. Even then, though, BAR was still BAR to Villeneuve.

He remained loyal and retained Pollock as his manager, and has done so to this day. But the team was still BAR, he had still been there at its birth and, with his contract lasting until the end of 2003, he could still fight to be there when it came good and reap his rewards, with or without his friend at the helm.

Unfortunately for Villeneuve, Richards' very open calls for the Canadian to take pay cut last year and his clear suggestions that he was not a part of the team's future, put paid to that dream earlier than perhaps Villeneuve would have liked. It effectively killed it there and then.

"As a sportsman you cannot perform when you are in that sort of environment," said Clear. "I don't think it is fair to say that he has been made to feel unwelcome or made to feel unsupported - I think David Richards has gone out of his way to be as fair as possible to Jacques in the way he has dealt with him at the circuit and in races and that sort of thing.

"But all the time there is some discussion over whether the team is planning to keep you or replace you with Takuma Sato, so there is a... call it paranoia, call it sensitivity or whatever; you do feel unwanted. And I am sure other drivers have felt it along the line.

"Jacques won't be the first and he won't be the last, but I think under the circumstances of it being BAR - which he considered to be his team - and the five years of what he sees as sheer effort he has put into it, I think he feels somewhat let down.

"We had failed to achieve our expectations from the start. Now I don't suppose anybody believes that any of us thought we would win our first race, even though (former boss) Adrian Reynard apparently said it and if he did he was the only one in the world who believed it was remotely a dream, least of all Jacques.

"But what we did expect was to have a solid professional start to our Formula One career and we can't deny the fact that we didn't achieve that. Our reliability was lamentable and a lot of our professional business was not handled in a particularly good manner. That disappointed Jacques.

"Even so, I don't think he regrets anything. Yes, he looks back at 2001 and thinks he might have made the wrong decision [not to move to Renault] but the word 'regret' is not really the right one, because he remembers that at the time - with the information he had available and with the loyalties he had in place - he chose to stay here."

Things went from bad to worse this season, however, with a disastrous lack of reliability from his car coupled with a solid performance from his teammate Button, a much younger protege whom Richards has known from his family days. The Villeneuve-Pollock 'family', it appeared, should now move on.

After out-qualifying and out-racing Button in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Villeneuve failed to start the Malaysian race as Button out-qualified him and then secured points for seventh at Sepang. Villeneuve fought back with sixth at the following rain-hit race in Brazil but then it all fell apart.

Five failures to finish in the subsequent six races saw almost every part of his car let him down. First oil problems in San Marino, then electrics in Spain, engine in Monaco, brakes at his home race in Canada - where he also spun in qualifying - and gearbox problems in the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

By the time the team arrived in France, with more than half the season gone, Villeneuve was fully frustrated and complaining about his bad luck and bad equipment. "Surely this can't go on," he was left pleading. Well, it didn't. But it might as well have done.

He comfortably out-qualified Button at Magny-Cours, at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix and at Hockenheim for the German, but he finished ninth, tenth and ninth respectively as Button secured two points for eighth places in the latter two races.

A last hurrah in Italy, with sixth place after qualifying 10th, was his final finish. His final race, at the place where he won the Indianapolis 500 in one of his golden hours, ended after 63 laps when his engine from Honda allowed him to race no more. The irony is not lost but at least the frustration could end.

"Nobody is under the illusion that his season has been good," said Clear matter-of-factly. "But I keep reading these comments saying 'why is Jacques Villeneuve so surprised they have dropped him, he's been shit this year and Jenson's blown him away'. Well, I don't think he is actually claiming that people have been employing him on the basis of this year.

"I think as far as he is concerned this year was a lost year. I am not in a position to really pass judgement because I don't know exactly what has gone on. I only know what he has told me and that is probably one sided. But I can see it from his point of view and he has put a lot of effort into the team.

"The one thing I would agree with him on 100 percent is that he has not come out in the press and lambasted the team for their poor performance over the last five years and he had every right to do so on many occasions. I think the media spotlight on the level of his performance has disappointed him when that clearly depends heavily on the equipment at his disposal."

Whether he has had the equipment that Button has over the year, Clear was not saying, although it is unthinkable that the team would want to throw away their chances just to make a former World Champion look less than he should. In fact, all the failures on Villeneuve's car have left them angry and frustrated.

The Japanese Grand Prix, in contrast, left them anything but that. Button's fourth and Sato's sixth place finishes ensured they comfortably secured fifth place in the Constructors' Championship and put the smiles back on the Honda faces. The atmosphere in the paddock was back on a high.

To some observers, the BAR garage looked in a state of shock after Villeneuve's announcement. It was certainly a shock for Clear. Even though he knew Villeneuve's feelings, he did not expect them to come to a head so dramatically. The World Championship battle buried the story, but it was a big one.

So, too, was Clear's realisation that he may be able to live his own BAR dream with the new man in his life: Sato. Obviously reluctantly, through no fault of the young Japanese driver, he had accepted his task. But together they had achieved the desired result. So what is next?

"Well, obviously I have a very good relationship with Jacques and we have had a gentleman's agreement that all the time he was racing I would engineer him and all the time he was racing he would want me to engineer him," said Clear. "But as it stands at the moment he won't be racing next year.

"It is not really an issue for him. It hasn't really caused any unrest between the two of us because he recognises that I am a race engineer at BAR and I have always been employed by BAR. However close the relationship, there is no professional connection other than he drove for my team.

"It has been in discussion for quite some time as to whether we would keep Jacques or whether we would take Taku and during those discussions obviously we had to work out what I would be doing if either of those situations occurred. At the moment I am planning to stay.

"I was made aware a week or ten days ago that Jacques would not be retained next year and therefore we had in mind that over the next three months I would have a chance to talk to Taku and decide how we are going to work and what sort of communication we would favour and all the other issues.

"That was going to be nice fuel for the winter so we would have it all sorted by Melbourne. But then this happened. It is disappointing not to have Jacques here and the way Jacques left the team is very disappointing, but every cloud has a silver lining and it was good to get through Taku's first race the way we did.

"Logistically, it is very simple. I am a race engineer and we now have a new driver. Personally, it is a little bit more difficult and obviously I was a little bit concerned about how Jacques would take it if he were to be displaced by Takuma, because I have a duty to the team and to Taku.

"As soon as that decision was made, obviously I had to do my best to get Taku up to speed and to get him comfortable with the team, and I don't have a problem doing that. It did make me worry as to whether Jacques would see that as being disloyal, but as he has always been with me, he was nothing but fair.

"From my point of view, it has not been as bad as I thought it would be, because at the end of the day it doesn't change my friendship with Jacques. Had he been here we would have been talking about tyres and engines and traction control and that sort of thing like we always do. But I will see him next week."

The future for Villeneuve and for Clear, despite his allegiance to BAR, remains clouded. Some believe the Canadian will come back, some believe he will race elsewhere. But one man is waiting for his call. "It would have to be a good offer," said Clear, speaking for both Villeneuve and himself. "But let's wait and see..."