In another installation of ENRG Sport’s ‘Women Pioneering Motorsports’ series , Kaitlyn Mckinney covers the extensive career of Bernie Collins, a race strategist and Sky Sports F1 presenter.
Born in Maguiresbridge, Northern Ireland, Bernie Collins never thought she would have ended up in motorsports.
From a young age, Collins would help her dad in the garage, building and dismantling farmyard machinery. This continued into her schooling where she developed a love of STEM subjects such as maths and physics.
Following some careful consideration Collins applied to study mechanical engineering at Queens University Belfast. She was accepted and thus started her engineering journey in Belfast. In her final two years of study, she joined the university’s Formula Student team. This gave her an opportunity to design, test and compete against other university teams with small-scale formula style cars.
“I guess nobody really told me that I couldn’t do it or shouldn’t do it so it just felt like the right thing for me,” Collins to the BBC.
“My advice is always to choose subjects that you enjoy.”
An advertisement on campus led Collins to apply for the graduate training programme at McLaren.
After landing a place on the course, Collins would rotate through different departments, gaining in-depth knowledge and experience throughout the team. This then led to her transfer to McLaren’s design department during her final year of university.
To achieve further work experience, Collins also volunteered as an engineer at GP3 race weekends.
“What I’ve tried to say to people in the past is whatever degree you’re doing, get as much experience as you can. It’s really useful to rule careers out as much as it is to rule them in.”
Collins was then offered to work part-time for McLaren GT sports car racing team, undertaking support for its factory operation to manage its green house admissions – an area she had desired to work in. Not long after she joined the team, Collins was promoted to performance engineer in 2012.
In late 2013, McLaren’s primary performance engineer in F1 was absent because of paternity leave. This temporarily assigned Collins to the position for the Indian and Abu Dhabi races that year. In 2014, Collins was handed the full time job.
The following year, 2015, Collins left McLaren to work for Force India. She worked as a performance and senior strategy engineer, supporting driver Nico Hülkenburg.
During her time at Force India, Collins helped driver Sergio Pérez achieve a podium at the 2015 Russian gran prix. She also pushed the team become more consistent at scoring points and podiums.
Since, Force India have re-branded into Aston Martin, and during this change Collins was promoted to head of race strategy. This saw her leading race strategy, guiding the team, and maximising the points gained each race weekend.
Today, Bernie Collins is a presenter for Sky Sports F1, analysing the different race strategies and explaining them to the public during race weekends. She provides invaluable insight due to her first-hand experience.
In an interview with Females in Motorsport, Collins said, “It’s so important to just see other people do it and see other people do it well. To see us on the pit wall and say, ‘you know I could do that, why not’. Representation is very important.”
