Is Kerry Condon’s <i>F1</i> Role Based on a Real Person?

Damson Idris and Brad Pitt may be getting all the love for their new summer blockbuster F1, but the real MVP is Kerry Condon. The Banshees of Inisherin star plays Kate McKenna, a technical director for the fictional Formula 1 team in the film, APXGP.

Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna in F1.

Though Condon’s role was not based on a real-life person, she was inspired by a few other trailblazers in the sport. The first was Bernie Collins, an F1 analyst for Sky Sports and the former Head of Race Strategy for the Aston Martin F1 team.

“I learned a lot from Bernie because of her Irish background,” Condon told F1 Nation. “I thought that was going to be perfect. I thought, ‘Yes, bingo, I’m going to base it kind of on Bernie’s backstory.’”

Collins was born in Ireland, just like Condon, and her love for Formula 1 began in school. While enrolled at Queen’s University Belfast, she studied mechanical engineering and joined the Formula Student program, an international engineering design competition where students design and build racing cars. Throughout her career, Collins has held various strategy and performance engineering roles at McLaren, United Autosports, Force India, and Aston Martin.

Collins at the Formula One World Championship in Austin, Texas in 2014.

“Bernie had a similar education to me,” Condon told TODAY. “She went to an all-girls school and stuff, so I kind of brought in a lot of my own background and made it my own.”

While on set, Condon also asked Collins for advice on certain scenes. “And then little things like the notepad that I have when I walk to the pit wall, I asked Bernie what she would have written on the front page of her notepad,” she told F1 Nation. “Just in case the camera caught a glimpse of my notepad or something.”

Condon also took cues from Ruth Buscombe, a British motorsport engineer and F1 TV presenter. “[She] was very helpful,” she said. “I just kind of found out a little bit about where they went to college and what they studied and the route that they took to get there.”

Buscombe at the Austrian Grand Prix at Red Bull Ring in 2018.

Buscombe also became interested in F1 at an early age. She attended the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering and studied aerospace and aerothermal engineering. After graduating, she joined the Ferrari team as a development engineer and then later became their race strategist. She’s also held engineering and strategy positions at Haas and Sauber.