Fry was born in Shepperton, Surrey, England. After exploring several engineering courses, he became an apprentice at Thorn EMI in 1981, completing a day-release electronics course at the City of London Polytechnic while working on the company's missile programmes. He left Thorn EMI in 1987 to pursue a career in motorsport, drawn in part by a personal interest in building suspension systems for motorbikes.
Fry joined Benetton Formula's research and development department in Witney, Oxfordshire, where the team was working on active suspension systems. He moved through the test team and the Godalming R&D department before returning to the test team in 1991, then becoming Martin Brundle's race engineer for the 1992 season.
In 1993 former Benetton colleague Giorgio Ascanelli brought Fry to McLaren, initially to work on active suspension. When active suspension was banned ahead of the 1994 season he moved into a race-team engineering role. He served as Mika Häkkinen's race engineer in 1995, then returned to the test team in 1996, before taking on the role of David Coulthard's race engineer in 1997, a position he held for four years.
From 2001 Fry moved into a tactical coordinating role overseeing both race cars, and in 2002 was promoted to chief engineer of race development. In that capacity he was responsible for the MP4-20 — named Autosport's 2005 Racing Car of the Year — the MP4-22 (Autosport's 2007 Racing Car of the Year), and the MP4-24 chassis. He departed McLaren on 14 May 2010.
Fry joined Ferrari on 1 July 2010 as assistant technical director. In January 2011 he replaced Chris Dyer as head of race track engineering while retaining the assistant technical director position under Aldo Costa. The reshuffle followed a strategic error at the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that cost Fernando Alonso a chance at the Drivers' Championship.
When Costa was moved to an undefined position in May 2011, Fry became director of chassis, with the technical director role dissolved and the three remaining directors — chassis, production, and electronics — reporting directly to team boss Stefano Domenicali. In July 2013 Ferrari announced that James Allison would take over as chassis technical director from September; Fry remained at the team in a newly created director of engineering role. He left Ferrari at the end of 2014 as part of a broader management restructuring.
In January 2016 Fry joined Manor Racing in a consulting capacity, assisting the small team's engineering effort during what would prove to be its final season in Formula One.
McLaren brought Fry back in September 2018 as engineering director on a temporary basis, covering the period between the departure of previous technical leadership and the arrival of James Key from Toro Rosso. Fry led the development of the 2019 McLaren MCL34. He departed on gardening leave in July 2019.
Fry joined the Renault F1 Team for the 2020 season. When the team rebranded as Alpine F1 Team for 2021, he continued in his engineering role and before the 2022 season was appointed chief technical officer, overseeing all technical activities, setting performance targets, and identifying future technologies. He left the team after the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix was announced as his departure point.
Fry joined Williams Racing as chief technical officer starting in November 2023, taking on responsibility for the technical direction of the team as it pursues a recovery up the constructor standings.
Across a career spanning more than three decades, Pat Fry has worked at nearly every major constructor in Formula One, contributing to some of the sport's most celebrated cars. His involvement with McLaren's MP4-20 and MP4-22 — both recognised as cars of the year — and his long tenure at Ferrari place him among the most experienced technical figures of the modern era. His career trajectory from active suspension specialist to chief technical officer reflects the broad engineering depth that defines elite Formula One technical leadership.