Bernie Collins makes SURPRISE admission about her entry into F1

Bernie Collins

Bernie Collins makes SURPRISE admission about her entry into F1

Collins has candidly admitted she entered the sport in 2009 with little prior knowledge

Dan Davis

Saturday 12 August 2023 17:57

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Former Aston Martin strategy chief Bernie Collins has revealed how she rose to the top of Formula One and called crucial shots partly by accident.

Collins acted as the head of strategy at the Force India/Aston Martin team before stepping away in the middle of 2022 and previously enjoyed a spell with McLaren.

It was with the latter that she took her first steps into motorsport alongside other budding engineers in their coveted graduate programme in 2009.

However, she was not wholly convinced about the step, she has now admitted.

"I started engineering and I really enjoyed it but I joined F1 by accident," she told RaceFans.

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"Well, not by accident, but lots of people know that they want to work in F1 and I didn't know that."

Collins now works with Sky Sports as part of their F1 punditry line-up

'I had no strategy knowledge'

Collins then worked herself through the ranks at McLaren but departed in May 2015 for Force India, a team she held a prior connection to via her partner.

Starting off with a role that split her time between performance and strategy, she quickly saw her responsibilities change in light of Randeep Singh's imminent exit.

Once again, Collins has laid bare the plunge she took in embracing the pressure.

"We had two races cross over," she added. "It was meant to be me doing the performance and a bit of strategy, but now I was doing all strategy because Randy was leaving.

"There was another strategist there at the time, and [my role] just became all strategy with a tiny bit of performance. Then over the years it just became no performance and all strategy. When I joined I had no strategy knowledge."