Why did Bernie Collins leave Aston Martin F1 and join Sky Sports?

Bernie Collins has opened up about her reasons for leaving her role as head of race strategy at Aston Martin and joining Sky Sports' F1 commentary team.

Collins worked as a performance engineer at McLaren before joining Aston Martin when they were in their Force India/Racing Point setup in 2015. She served as a performance and strategy engineer and later as a senior strategy engineer before getting promoted to the role of head of strategy in 2020.

She made her on-screen debut for Sky Sports at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and was seen again during the Azerbaijan GP this weekend. On a Sky F1 podcast, she shed light on her decision to move away from the pitwall and into broadcasting:

“I think maybe like a lot of my decisions, it’s not necessarily been well planned out, but the 23 races became really difficult, and I wanted to achieve more of a home/life balance. Particularly I think post the COVID years, you sort of had a bit of a reset and a think about things.”

She added:

“I just thought, I really enjoyed what I did before. I really enjoyed working for Aston Martin. I loved working for the team. It was just an opportunity to have a reset and do something a little bit different.

"I decided at the end of ‘21 that I was going to step back and then worked my six months’ notice to bring me to the middle of 2022. I just thought 'I can’t continue to live life like I’m 21 when I’m not 21, so let’s try and do something different'.”

Nevertheless, Collins did confess that she misses certain aspects of her old role:

“I’m missing having all my data, so I’m missing having all the interaction or knowing what’s happening from a racing side. So yeah, there’s definitely aspects I miss. And I miss the team element - trying to pull together and make the best of the car.”

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“I’m enjoying watching the race again” - Bernie Collins on joining Sky Sports F1 team

While Bernie Collins learned everything about F1 race strategy during her time with McLaren and Aston Martin, she's now enjoying the chance to watch F1 races from a different perspective.

Speaking about her new role, she said:

“Now I’m learning so much about the technicalities of how they build a programme together. I feel like I’m learning loads. I feel like I’m enjoying this aspect of learning, which I’m loving.

She added:

“I’m enjoying watching the race again. Because before, when you’re on the pitwall, you’re very focused on your own race. Now I”m really enjoying seeing what everyone’s doing and trying to guess what they’re doing.”