Bianca Bustamante is one of the most recognisable figures in junior formulae, with more than three million followers across her social media platforms. In an exclusive interview with Feeder Series, she opened up about the toughest race weekend of her career and the pressure that comes with being herself.

By George Sanderson

The 2024 Singapore Grand Prix race weekend left an indelible mark on Bianca Bustamante – for all the wrong reasons.

The Filipina racer, then 19, was in her second season in the all-female Formula 4–spec F1 Academy series with ART Grand Prix and McLaren backing. Entering the weekend seventh in the championship with 57 points and a single podium in Miami, Bustamante was looking to score points again after missing out in both races at Zandvoort.

The Marina Bay Street Circuit in downtown Singapore is the closest venue to Bustamante’s home in Manila in the Philippines. There was the usual attention that comes with being on the F1 support bill, surrounded by television crews filming for Netflix’s F1: The Academy docuseries about the championship. But given the location, there were even more expectant fans at the race supporting her, some having come from just a few miles from her home.

Bustamante qualified ninth and 10th, averaging 0.921 seconds off polesitter and eventual champion Abbi Pulling, who claimed double pole. Then in race one, she missed her grid slot on the formation lap, resulting in an aborted start and a stop-go penalty. 

After finishing race one last, Bustamante spun on lap three of race two to bring out the safety car. While she was able to continue, she was hit by Tina Hausmann on the restart and ultimately finished 14th. It was her second consecutive weekend with no points scored and her worst yet in the series in terms of results.

To everyone watching, Bustamante’s weekend was defined by the rookie-level mistakes she made – a view only furthered by Netflix’s portrayal of events when the series aired in May 2025. For months, she endured criticism and widespread mockery for how the weekend panned out. 

Only in June 2025, nine months after that round in Singapore, did she reveal to the public the battle she had silently gone through. 

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Bustamante grew up in a middle-class family of four. Her father, Raymund, was ‘away often’ working three blue-collar jobs as an overseas Filipino worker. Her mother, Janice, was the main caregiver, staying home to look after the family and raise Bianca and her brother, Rafael. It was her father’s hard work that funded her early racing career, helping him pay for tyres and fuel for his daughter’s karting activities whilst also keeping a roof over her family’s heads. 

In her father’s absence, Bustamante’s grandfather was a pivotal part of her childhood.

“[My granddad] was probably the main father figure I had growing up. We were always close,” she told Feeder Series. “He was definitely someone that I looked up to a lot because he [had] so much discipline in him and he made sure that I grew up to be very disciplined as well. A lot of my characteristics I got from him, which is something that I’m very proud of.”

At the age of 17, Bustamante took an early leap into adult life, leaving behind her family in the Philippines in her pursuit of racing opportunities by moving to Indianapolis. Having grown up surrounded by the support of her family, she was now not only looking to support herself in racing but also having to learn to look after herself as her mother had done previously.

The move took her to the other side of the globe, far from her parents and grandfather. As her racing career accelerated – her progress highlighted by a seventh-place finish in her debut F1 Academy season in 2023 – she had fewer and fewer opportunities to fly home to visit them. The distance meant she couldn’t always see firsthand what was happening in their lives.

The Singapore F1 Academy weekend in 2024 began as any other would – media duties, team meetings, fan interactions. And then her mother came with some unexpected news about her grandfather.

“I found out that he had been battling with leukemia and he didn’t want me to know, so my family kept it from me throughout the whole year. For the Singapore Grand Prix, my mum actually came to Singapore and told me that my granddad was dying. That was before qualifying and I just absolutely lost my head,” she said. “I got to quali, and I was upset and disappointed because I didn’t do well, because my mind was elsewhere.”

What began as shock turned to grief overnight.

“I found out [he had died] the morning after, when I woke up around 11 – and then we had to race in like three hours. Something I deeply regret was not being able to say goodbye because I was too busy living my life and racing.”

Bustamante was unable to do what she described as ‘the most normal thing’: flying home to spend time with her grandfather. It was a cruel reality that, despite being just a four-hour flight from home, she couldn’t see him in his final moments. Instead, she had to grieve whilst trying to perform at her highest level.

Once she was away from the track, she had more space to process what had happened that weekend.

“Time is always the best storyteller and healer,” she said. “You grow up, you manage things, you compartmentalise things. Having a sports psychologist going through and managing all those things and emotions and thoughts has definitely helped me on and off the track.”

Bustamante was still being ridiculed for her errors on track on social media. It wasn’t her first time facing adversity; she had come under fire for her involvement in previous racing incidents as well as for liking an ableist X post criticising F1 driver Lance Stroll in late 2023.

But when no one knew the full story of how her Singapore weekend went, Bustamante found that the best way to deal with critical comments was to ignore them.

“I always would say to myself that ‘hey, some haters are your biggest fans because they are the ones who watch out for you the most’,” she told Feeder Series. “Looking at it like that just lets me brighten up the day and not take anything to heart, especially dealing with something that, at the time, was so private and intimate to me. I didn’t really have the time to care about what other people were thinking.”

Bustamante’s performances improved slightly at the following round in Qatar. She qualified on the fourth row in both qualifying sessions and was running ninth with three laps to go in race one. Her run of four races without scoring appeared to be coming to an end.

That was until Bustamante pushed her car over the limit whilst chasing Jess Edgar for eighth, spinning and dropping to the rear of the field. It thrust her into the spotlight once again – when she just wanted to stay out of it.

“You’d have moments where being in front of the camera is the last thing you want to do, but unfortunately it comes with the job,” Bustamante acknowledged. “You have interviews that you have to do even though you don’t want to do it. It comes with it, both the pleasurable and sometimes the sad bit of racing.”

She ended her scoreless run with fifth place in race one of the Abu Dhabi finale before she finished seventh in race two. She had been running in sixth in the final race but had to take evasive action to avoid a spinning Hamda Al Qubaisi on the antepenultimate lap, dropping her to 12th. A 10-second penalty for a separate collision with Al Qubaisi earlier in the race then dropped her to 14th.

Bustamante finished the season seventh in the drivers’ standings for consecutive seasons.

The pressure on her had not abated. With her F1 Academy journey at its end, Bustamante was dropped from the McLaren Driver Development Programme after a year with the team. Her childhood dream was over almost as soon as it had started.

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Since she arrived in single-seaters in 2022, Bustamante has served as an ambassador for several well-known brands, from F1 driver Lando Norris’ content and apparel brand Quadrant to cosmetics company Anastasia Beverly Hills. The likes of Google Pixel, Logitech G, EA Sports, Lego and Priority Pass have all contributed to her racing career.

Bustamante’s marketability helped her earn a spot in the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list’s sports and games category in Europe. She was the only racing driver on the list.

Being so prominent in the world of marketing is rare for junior drivers. The frequency and intensity of her sponsor commitments receives regular scrutiny, and Bustamante has endured criticism for the perception that racing is her secondary focus. But it was through these sponsors that she found her seat for 2025.

“Having grown my brand has definitely allowed me to race in GB3,” Bustamante told Feeder Series. “The reality is a lot of the drivers that have graduated from F1 Academy aren’t in single-seaters anymore or aren’t racing anymore, in fact. They’ve either migrated into GT racing or have stopped racing at all.

“I could have been one of those drivers, but fortunately, because of the hard work I’ve put in off the track in making a name for myself and building my brand and doing the hard work that entails with marketing and media, I was then able to afford to compete in GB3 and afford testing.”

Bustamante signed with GB3 team Elite Motorsport for what marked a return to FRegional-spec competition after her W Series season in 2022. From among F1 Academy’s ranks, Bustamante was joined by Pulling, who received a fully funded seat with Rodin Motorsport after winning the 2024 title.

Bustamante began testing the previous generation of GB3 cars, the Tatuus MSV-022, in October 2024, initially testing with Chris Dittmann Racing at Monza before joining Elite at Aragón in December. But the arrival of the new Tatuus MSV GB3-025 chassis for the 2025 season posed a different challenge for the Filipina.

“[The Tatuus MSV GB3-025] is a lot heavier, so that meant that all of the testing last year didn’t really compare to how much more physical it would be in the coming year,” Bustamante explained. “It’s very pitch-sensitive, so that meant that I had to really fine-tune all my driving habits and characteristics to tailor it to the car.”

“I had to be really precise with all my inputs and driving,” she continued. “[It] is a hard thing to get into, especially coming from F4 where it’s a bit more of a ‘numb’ car, where it’s not as sensitive.”

The introduction of the current-generation car posed a setback for Bustamante, who struggled more to adapt to the new GB3 chassis than she had the old one. The 20-year-old, who stands at 157 cm and weighs only 53 kg, spoke on her Instagram account about the challenges she has faced in being thrown around in the car and having to withstand increased g-forces.

“The biggest thing that I’ve had to develop was my physical strength as the GB3 car just required more from me in both a strength and cardiovascular perspective,” she told Feeder Series. “I’ve had to increase my lifts, as I have this season. I’ve maxed out all my PR [personal records] and increased it all.”

Having more on-track sessions each weekend also posed its own challenges. In F1 Academy, drivers take part in one or two 40-minute practice sessions, one 30-minute qualifying and two 30-minute races per weekend. By comparison, the GB3 format features three 25-minute races per weekend, two 15-minute qualifying sessions and multiple testing sessions on Thursday and Friday.

“We are on track a lot, a lot more compared to F1 Academy,” Bustamante said. “I just needed to be able to last throughout the whole weekend, which at times was quite difficult.”

Bustamante struggled in the early season, missing the first Silverstone race entirely after crashing heavily at Copse in qualifying and causing too much damage to her car to be repaired before race one. It took her until race six to finish inside the top 15, which she did for the first time in race three at Zandvoort.

But upon GB3’s second visit to Silverstone in August for round five – just beyond the season’s halfway point – Bustamante had made obvious gains compared to the season opener in April.

Bustamante had closed the gap to pole in qualifying by 25 per cent, from 2.523 seconds in the second qualifying session in April to just 1.891s in the second session from August. In April, Bustamante finished the two races she contested in 20th and 19th, having started both from 21st. By comparison, in the August round, she finished 15th, 17th and 18th after starting 22nd, 21st and 20th respectively.

“I didn’t really trust myself in the car [in April], so coming back for Silverstone for the middle part of the year, we really showed potential and improvements,” she said.

Race two was her ‘favourite race of the season’ because she was able to see the progress she had made across the first half of the campaign.

“That was, race-pace wise, the closest we’ve ever been. [I] made lots of good passes and we were battling mid-pack,” she said. “It felt really good to be competitive and to have my elbows out after a good qualifying and race start.”

The following rounds at Brands Hatch and Donington Park proved to be trickier. Those were her first experiences of the more traditional British tracks, and noise restrictions in the area around Brands Hatch limit the amount of track time drivers get.

“Brands Hatch was very tough, not having much track time as obviously we normally would,” Bustamante said. “That really caught me off guard, and I couldn’t really find a rhythm all weekend long, which was tough for us, especially coming from Silverstone and the progression we’d made.”

Bustamante was now away from the spotlight of the F1 support bill, but she still faced pressure to perform and set an example as one of only two women who completed a full season at the FR level in 2025.

“There definitely is a lot of pressure that comes with being a woman in this sport and learning in the spotlight,” Bustamante said. “A normal Regional or GB3 driver wouldn’t get this much attention, wouldn’t get this much social media presence. I myself do, so that means that everything is always magnified. The results are always magnified – the lows magnified but the highs also magnified, which is great.”

The GB3 Championship was on the support bill for the British GT Championship at British venues in 2025 while supporting either GT World Challenge Europe or International GT Open when in Europe. In comparison with the series on the F1 support bill, the GB3 paddock had a more relaxed atmosphere that helped Bustamante focus more on herself and her racing.

“Having a proper [race] weekend where we didn’t have that much pressure,” she said, “was a really good thing for me. I could just get my head down and focus and do my debriefs.”

Whilst GB3 had been a fresh start for Bustamante, she also received a welcome confidence boost midway through the season when she signed with Formula E team Cupra Kiro as their official development driver. She took part in the women’s test for the team a second time in October that year, placing third at the end of the day, 0.770s off pacesetter Chloe Chambers’ fastest time. Pulling was second, 0.064s behind Chambers.

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Bustamante has had plenty of time over the past year to reflect on her career to date, especially her year with McLaren.

“Being with McLaren and such a big name in motorsport comes with a lot of pressure. At the same time, it is my dream being with McLaren and being part of such a historic team. It is little Bia’s dream,” she told Feeder Series. “I truly enjoyed the grind, I enjoyed the interviews, I enjoyed the highs, I enjoyed the lows. They’ll always have a special place in my heart.”

Now based in London, England, Bustamante has also found more time to expand her own horizons and recharge away from race weekends. She runs, golfs and goes to the gym while also engaging with her passions for photography, architecture and drawing.

“London is my second home now,” she told Feeder Series. “I have my little bubble here in London and it’s filled with people who support and love me, so I think that has definitely made London more homely. I think it’s a place that I will be living in for the next few years because of racing, travelling and my career.”

While Bustamante may be on the other side of the world, her roots remain a major part of her character, be it through posting TikToks in her native Tagalog language or flying her flag on her vibrant helmet design. 

This time around, when her grandmother suffered a health scare in June, Bustamante was able to fly home to be with her family and dog, Milo.

“Family is so important. Representation and being Filipino means everything to me,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons why I even wanted to pursue this path – because I wanted to cement the Philippine flag in the world of motorsport. Them supporting me and getting all the love and supportive comments and messages, it means the whole world to me.”

The support from her manager, Hong Kong businessman Darryl O’Young, has also shaped Bustamante into the woman she is today. The former GT and touring car racer, who has taken multiple Macau GT Cup and Bathurst 12 Hour victories and a Le Mans 24 Hours class podium, first met Bustamante in 2016, when she won a karting event in China that O’Young sponsored. He told her to contact him if she one day made the move to single-seaters and wanted advice, a promise fulfilled more than five years later.

Bustamante was living in America at the time, providing for herself financially in an attempt to remove some of the financial burden from her parents. She was paying for her own apartment and doing all her own marketing, media and endorsements, and she was struggling. That was when O’Young came in.

He became her manager and helped ignite her career. He paid for her racing license and medical examinations as well as the tuition for Bustamante to attend the University of Santo Tomas – Angelicum College on a home-study program. In return, Bustamante worked part-time doing media and public relations for O’Young, who owns the CBR Media agency that now supports Bustamante’s career. 

“I always say he is like my dad because he really is,” Bustamante told Feeder Series. “He’s taught me a lot of lessons and taught me everything that I know in motorsport and the business side of it as well. He’s continuously guiding me through the journey.”

Since she started working with both O’Young and a sports psychologist, she has learned how to overcome hate received on social media.

“Seventeen-year-old Bia or 18-year-old Bia would be fazed by social media, but one of the best things about growing up is having that mental fortitude,” she said. “I go through social media. I scroll about my day. There will always be haters, and there will always be people who don’t like you, and there will always be people who make fun of you, the same way that seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton gets hate and gets negative comments.”

For 2026, Bustamante is looking to return to FR-level competition, saying that she ‘[has] a season confirmed’ but is unable to announce it yet. Feeder Series saw her testing with Euroformula Open team Northstar at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for four days in December, suggesting that a move away from GB3 could be on the cards.

Wherever her destination may be, her ambition is as clear as ever.

“I do miss the fans and I miss the atmosphere that F1 brings,” she said. “The goal is to be back in that paddock again and to be back on the Formula 1 ladder.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency