Bernie Collins Profile Picture

Keynote SpeakerBernie Collins

Sky Sports F1 Analyst and Former Head of Race Strategy at Aston Martin F1 team

With over a decade’s experience at the forefront of Formula 1, Bernie Collins is an accomplished strategy engineer, most recently employed as Head of Race Strategy for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team. During her career she has held senior strategy and performance engineering roles, playing a central role in... Read more

Biography

With over a decade’s experience at the forefront of Formula 1, Bernie Collins is an accomplished strategy engineer, most recently employed as Head of Race Strategy for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team. During her career she has held senior strategy and performance engineering roles, playing a central role in the teams she has worked for.

Bernie developed a passion for mechanics at a young age, having grown up constructing and dismantling farm machinery with her father at home in Northern Ireland. She decided to study mechanical engineering at Queen’s University Belfast and joined the annual Formula Student programme, a renowned engineering competition organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

After graduating in 2009, Bernie secured a place on the McLaren Formula 1 racing team’s graduate trainee programme. She volunteered as an engineer at GP3 Series race weekends, gaining further experience before receiving an offer from the McLaren GT sports car racing team. In 2012, Bernie was promoted to the role of performance engineer and went on to serve as race engineer for the United Autosports GT team in 2013.
Bernie’s big break came in late 2013 when she was offered a temporary role as McLaren’s primary performance engineer in Formula 1. Following this, she was offered the full-time position for the 2014 season, working closely with 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button.

In 2015, Bernie started working with the Force India team as a Performance and Strategy Engineer, including supporting team driver Nico Hülkenberg. She helped the team to achieve a podium finish for Sergio Pérez at the 2015 Russian Grand Prix. The following season Force India scored more podiums and consistent, points-scoring results en route to finishing fourth in the 2016 Formula 1 World Championship for Constructors.

Bernie became the Head of Race Strategy for the Aston Martin F1 Team in August 2020. The role saw her leading race strategy, guiding the team and its drivers as they sought to maximise the championship points achieved at each Grand Prix. This included balancing information flow from the drivers, engineers and support team in mission control back at headquarters, as well as reacting to external, dynamic events during each race.

In 2023, Bernie joined the Sky Sports F1 broadcasting team, her race strategy expertise adding significant depth to the channel’s coverage. She also contributes to Formula 1’s official website and digital channels, providing detailed insights on race strategy and helping fans to understand the complexity of decisions made during Grands Prix.

Her first book ‘How to Win a Grand Prix’ was published in 2024, becoming an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Selected as one of the Forbes ‘30 under 30’ young rising stars of manufacturing for the Make It in Great Britain campaign, Bernie has also been named in The Manufacturer’s Top 100 UK Role Models list.

Popular Talks by Bernie Collins

  • Technology & Data

    More than any other sport, Formula One has embraced a data-driven business culture, particularly with its near obsession with marginal gains and continuous improvement. F1 teams use data to enable drivers, engineers and HQ staff to determine precisely how the car and driver is behaving, diagnose issues, resolve problems and...

  • AI & GenAI

    AI and GenAI is transforming the sport of Formula 1, for example, by enhancing its race-day operations, drastically reducing the time that engineers spend diagnosing and resolving IT issues, enabling faster and more efficient problem-solving across its digital infrastructure. By embedding GenAI in to its race-day operations, F1 is accelerating...

  • Data-driven performance & Innovation 

    More than any other sport, Formula One has embraced a data-driven business culture, particularly with its near obsession with marginal gains and continuous improvement. F1 teams use data to enable drivers, engineers and HQ staff to determine precisely how the car and driver is behaving, diagnose issues, resolve problems and...

  • Cybersecurity

    More than any other sport, Formula One has embraced a data-driven business culture, particularly with its near obsession with marginal gains and continuous improvement. F1 teams use data to enable drivers, engineers and HQ staff to determine precisely how the car and driver is behaving, diagnose issues, resolve problems and...

  • Safety & Risk Management

    Safety is a first order priority in Formula One and the last 30 years have seen a profound change to the way in which the sport manages risk. Between 1950 and 1994, there were over 40 driver fatalities at races; there has been one since. This has been made possible...

  • Health & Safety 

    Formula One motor racing has placed safety at the centre of its regulatory, technical and operational focus for over 30 years, but it has been the cultural shift among these high performing teams of men and women competing at the forefront of the world championship which has had the greatest...

  • Leadership
  • Teamwork & Collaboration
  • Unlocking Peak Performance & The Winning Mindset 
  • Change & Transformation 
  • Sustainability 
  • Diversity, Equality & Inclusion