"This year has been about growth" - Bianca Bustamante on her 2024 season

"The wins aren't always won on track, but some off track as well" - Bianca Bustamante reflects on her busy 2024 campaign, what is it like to represent her home country as she gears up to move up to the GB3 Championship with Elite Motorsport in 2025.

Photo credits: F1 Academy Limited

Hailing from the Philippines, a country with a small motorsport scene, Bianca Bustamante received a kart from her father at a young age, sparking her interest in motorsport. It would be the start of a journey that continues to inspire a country of over 100 million people.

Bustamante started karting at six years old, moved up to international competitions three years later, winning various Asian karting championships, most notably winning the Macau International Kart Grand Prix three times.

"My dad was an avid motorsport head, always dreamt of being a driver himself," she said.

"Unfortunately he didn't have luck, nor the money so all of these things combined meant he couldn't pursue his dreams, so when I was born he put everything he had into my career."

"He gambled everything, loaned everything, just to be sure that I could be where I am today, so he's definitely the pillar of my career and my life, he sacrificed so I could be here today and that's initially how I got into motorsports."

After a successful karting career in Asia, Bustamante made her single-seater debut in the W Series in 2022, thus becoming the first Filipina in the championship, driving for Double R Racing-run W Series Academy alongside Juju Noda.

Despite the significant leap to Formula Regional machinery, Bustamante scored points on debut, with a ninth place in the first Miami race, but her lack of experience meant that she ended her rookie year fifteenth in the championship standings, tied on points with teammate Noda, as the best of the rookies.

During the year she also competed in the USF Juniors championship with IGY6 Motorsports, scoring a best result of tenth at Ozarks International Raceway and later in the year, she headed to India for the Indian Racing League, where she competed with Bangalore Speedsters, scoring a best result of fifth place on her series debut and collecting valuable track time.

Photo credits: F4 UAE

In 2023, she joined Prema Racing to compete in F4 UAE and F1 Academy, while also making one-off appearances in the Italian F4 and USF Juniors championships and her return to Macau in the form of the Macau Formula 4 Race towards the end of the year.

In F4 UAE, Bustamante was able to score points in a highly competitive field, while in Italian F4 she won twice in the Women's Trophy, while on her return to USF Juniors she scored a double ninth place finish.

However, her main highlights of the year was arguably the inaugural season of the all-female F1 Academy, where she scored a podium on debut at the Red Bull Ring and took her maiden win in single seaters just a round later in Valencia. Over the rest of the season, she scored two more podiums, with one of them being another win, in the third Monza race.

Having put the Philippines on the map of world's motorsport, Bianca quickly gained popularity in her home country, even receiving congratulations from the president after climbing the top step of the podium at Valencia.

When asked about what it meant to bear the flag and represent the Philippines in international competitions, Bustamante said:"there's nothing like representing your home country, I've got the support of the whole nation behind me, everyone rallying behind me every single time I race, a lot of fans and supporters so that's always a great thing."

"I'd love to see the Philippines grow in the motorsport scene, more drivers coming from the Philippines, going into the junior formulas", she continued. "When I started, I was the only Filipina, and to see that change it's amazing."

Following a promising 2023, Bustamante went into 2024 with high expectations, having joined ART Grand Prix and the McLaren Driver Development Programme.

She started the year off in Formula Winter Series, competing for GRS for the first three rounds of the championship, scoring a best finish of 17th in the third Aragon race, in a series aimed to prepare her main program.

She then turned her attention to F1 Academy and kicked off the season on a high, scoring a top five in the opening race of the season. Bustamante kept this form going through the next five races, even scoring a podium in the second Miami race.

After fighting bad luck in the next four rounds, she scored another top-five at Yas Marina, followed by a seventh in the final race meeting of the season and ending a challenging year again seventh in the standings - in her final season in the championship.

Photo credits: F1 Academy Limited

Reflecting on her 2024 season, Bustamante said:"This year has been about growth, I had to grow up from last year."

"My biggest area of weakness was mental, I struggled mentally to face difficult weekends and bounce back, good weekends were great and bad weekends were terrible and I didn't have that equilibrium in me to bounce back from one race to another."

"This year, we made sure I was in a car as much as possible to get as much experience from as many championships as possible, all different platforms, drivers, cars, and teams, I have to continuously evolve and develop in."

"I feel like because of this I'm a lot more adaptable in any given condition and that's something that I lacked as a junior driver last year."

Photo credits: F1 Academy Limited

"It's been great, had lots of fun being part of the McLaren Driver Development Programme as well, having the opportunity to work with the Formula 1 team, looking at data, the sim, having access at the facility, those things that amount to performance on track, so it's been a great year."

"We've had a lot of ups and downs but I knew that within myself I was able to keep it level headed and didn't have any mental breakdowns or anything here and there, so for me that's a win."

"The wins aren't always won on track, but some off track as well. So, a lot of things to carry forward on to next year as I move up."

After her one-off outing in the Italian F4 season finale, Bustamante stayed in Monza, testing GB3 machinery for the first time with Chris Dittmann Racing prior to the final two rounds of the F1 Academy season.

Recently, it was announced that she would make the step up to GB3, joining Elite Motorsport alongside last year's fifth place finisher, William Macintyre.

Bustamante will therefore aim to continue her progress in single seaters, with another significant step in her career.