Sat in the souped-up surrounds of her Formula One team garage, wearing dark bootcut jeans, a cropped military-style blazer and black ankle boots, Kerry Condon is looking perfectly at home as the visceral roar of race cars thunders somewhere in the distance. Yet while the rumbling of engines is real, the garage in which Condon sits, and the APXGP team housed within it, are fictional.

It’s all part of a film set created by the watchmaker IWC at the Goodwood Motor Circuit during the Goodwood Members’ Meeting. If the wall-to-wall filming equipment and reconfigured Mercedes F2 cars feel worthy of an action-ready Jerry Bruckheimer film, that’s because they are. At the end of June 2025, the Hollywood mega-producer’s much anticipated F1: The Movie hits theatres. Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Only the Brave, Top Gun: Maverick), the film features an all-star cast, including Oscar-winners Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem, alongside Condon and Britian’s Damson Idris. Prepare for a rip-roaring, seat-gripping ride.

Walking the replica garage, Condon confesses to feeling emotional. “I was kind of expecting to see the crew. It’s a bit surreal walking past what seems like the set,” says the Irish actor, Oscar-nominated herself for The Banshees of Inisherin. The F1 movie took more than two years to make, with the crew travelling the world to pitstop at actual F1 races, including the British and Las Vegas Grands Prix. Filming was timed to a tee, with the crew stealing 15 minutes here, to shoot between qualifying, another few minutes there, for pit-wall scenes during live racing. “To be honest, I felt very much like part of a real team at every grand prix,” says Condon. “I was nervous, excited – I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

The immersive approach taken by production was in pursuit of depicting the electrifying energy of Formula 1 as authentically as possible. “We pushed the cars, the drivers and our cameras to the absolute limit, to capture racing like you’ve never seen it before,” says Bruckheimer.

Fans got a taste of this at Goodwood back in April. On the historic motor circuit, a live stunt demonstration unfolded with Damson Idris and stunt driver Eliott Cole, alongside a cameo from a bespoke Mercedes AMG GT in the APXGP black and gold livery – the first time the car has been shown to the public. Drone footage and a Mercedes GLE 63S camera-car shooting dynamic 360-degree footage captured the scene. The whole thing was livestreamed on social media.

In the film, Condon plays Kate McKenna – APXGP’s lead engineer and race director, whose main role is optimizing the F1 car and team strategy. Notably, she is the first female technical director in Formula One and Kate has a STEM-heavy job that feels especially topical: more women than ever are watching the sport – more than 40 per cent of fans are female, according to a recent report, helped, it’s thought, by the hit Netflix drama Drive to Survive.

Condon is effectively the real-life Laura Mueller, who this year became F1’s first female race engineer, talking technics and strategy into the ear of Haas driver, Esteban Ocon, as he competes on track. Another woman holding down one of Formula 1’s most dynamic jobs right now is Chief Commercial Officer Emily Prazer, who oversees all commercial, licensing and gaming activities. Then there’s Susie Wolff, a Scottish former racing driver and the head of F1 Academy, the female-only championship that helps women drivers progress into F1 (which last month debuted its own Netflix series).

Having lived and breathed the role of an F1 engineer for more than two years, can Condon, 42, debunk the prevailing myth that women can’t handle such technical jobs? Condon sees it less a gender issue, and more of a lifestyle choice, given that those working in F1 are on the road for nine months of the year. “The big strategy and technical directors are such massive jobs, with massive pressure. It’s your whole life,” says Condon. “F1 is 24 races a year – you’d want to love it and the people who do the job, do. You simply must.”

It’s a job that requires putting in serious hours. “Ultimately, to get to Formula 1, to that level, you’re looking at 20 years of experience. I think a lot of women probably don’t want that lifestyle. I don’t think it’s necessarily a thing of they’re not allowed in. It’s just such a grueling schedule. Perhaps women have to make more sacrifices, in terms of if they want to have children, things like that.”

Help was also on hand from Bernie Collins – a former strategist at the Aston Martin Formula One Team, and now a strategy analyst for Sky Sports. Like Condon, she is Irish. “Naturally, there were a lot of similarities, and I was able to ask her anything and everything,” says Condon. “Everyone in F1 was so generous and open-armed.” Condon can’t stress enough the team nature of the sport. “You will see in the movie that we are a team. I didn’t even feel like I was a woman surrounded by men. There are female members on our crew. I didn’t see that divide. I think you can have lots of fun in male environments. The jokes are fun.”

Condon adds that certain props also helped her get into character – what she calls “ticks and prompts that made me feel very engineer: headset, notepad, watch.” IWC is the film’s official timing partner, and the cast is kitted out in the brand. Condon wore her watch – two, in fact – “all the time,” she insists. “A lot depended on where we were. In Vegas, for example, where it would be super hot in the day and my wrist would swell, I’d wear one, and then I had a tighter one during the race at night, when it was cooler.”

At Goodwood, Condon was wearing the new IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph 41, featuring the black, white and gold livery of the fictional APXGP team. “I am actually into watches,” she says, “and I’m not even lying! Firstly, I don’t like being on my phone all the time. I’ve been wearing watches my whole life. There’s something very nostalgic about them. I got one years ago as a gift and it was engraved. Watches are beautiful and elegant – they’re classy.” An avid swimmer, who likes to time herself, Condon wears a watch when exercising and washing her horses. “I’m very conscious how much work we’ve done or how long I’ve been lunging them – I always need a watch.”

With filming now wrapped, and the F1 season in full swing, does Condon ever conjure her previous character? “I have to let Kate go,” says Condon, bittersweetly. “Otherwise, it’s too upsetting to stay in a world that’s over. My job has different projects, and I need to rip off the band aid. That said, during this weekend, I did find myself checking who’s where, who’s doing what – just out of curiosity.”

F1: The Movie is released in UK cinemas on 25 June 2025, iwc.com