When she last spoke to BlackBook Motorsport, Bianca Bustamante was competing in F1 Academy as part of the McLaren Driver Development Programme.
Now unattached to either, much has changed in less than a year. Bustamante currently races in the GB3 Championship with Elite Motorsport and, most recently, was announced as the development driver for Cupra Kiro in Formula E.
As part of that new role, she took part in the series’ rookie test in Berlin on 14th July, a session that also featured Jamie Chadwick, Ella Lloyd and Abbi Pulling.
What hasn’t changed is Bustamante’s sheer marketing power – if anything, it’s grown.
The Filipina racing driver had already been ranked as the eighth most marketable motorsport athlete in SportsPro’s most recent edition of the world’s 50 Most Marketable Athletes (50MM).
But how is the 20-year-old leveraging the spotlight to her advantage and managing the increased visibility that comes with her growing social media presence? BlackBook Motorsport dials in with Bustamante to find out.
You’ve pioneered a new way to funding your racing career through social media. Does that come with a lot of pressure or do you find it empowering?
Anything in life comes with pressure, even choosing what to eat for dinner comes with pressure – or at least for me it does because I’m very indecisive. But yes, it’s a double-edged sword. I’m using my platform to drive me forward in my career. I’m using marketing and media to fuel my dreams.
You have basketball, you have tennis, you have football. All you need is the effort to train and put in the hours to be better. You can dribble as much as you want, you can kick the ball as much as you want for free. That is a luxury that we don’t have in racing.
We get in the car; that’s already 20 grand. We buy a new helmet; five grand. We buy a suit; two grand. It’s money that I didn’t have growing up. I had to value everything, so I had to view racing [in a] black and white [way].
I might not be able to race the next race or the next season if I don’t do well during qualifying or if I crash. It’s those little demons in your head telling you that if you crash the car, that’s going to be so expensive, that’s money that you don’t have.
I hang out with people my age and we just worry about different things. I’m worrying about funding my next season and having to put 800 grand worth of funding together. It’s something that not many 20-year-olds worry about.
So yes, it is a double-edged sword, but I’ve learned to find my way through it. If there’s one thing I can be proud of is that I made my career my own.
There’s a lot of stigma around racing drivers being very well off, that it’s generally reserved for people with money, but I’ve found my around that. You just need a bit of luck, good people around you, and a hell of a lot of hard work.
You’ve found yourself on Netflix through the new docuseries ‘F1: The Academy’. How did you find that experience and what was your reaction to it?
It’s so difficult having to grow up in the spotlight, it’s not our job to be in the spotlight. We’re not actors, we’re not built to be such a character – we’re built to drive cars and be racing drivers.
The documentary captures all the highs and the lows, the tears, the happy moments. I think that’s what sets it apart from anything else I’ve really experienced in life because you can do an interview and you can say what you want and be direct. You can hide those emotions, but with a documentary there’s no hiding.
There’s a camera in front of you after a bad race so what do you do? My first thought is probably cry and I did, and that’s what you’ll see. You’ll see a bunch of young girls navigating through life and figuring things out.
You will see us make a lot of mistakes and it’s tough, it’s gruesome, it’s so cut-throat this sport.
It’s a never-ending rollercoaster and I hope [the viewers] resonate with that a little bit even though it’s not the most relatable thing in the world trying to fund UK£600,000 worth of racing. It’s not the most relatable thing but I hope they relate with the emotions we show and how much passion we have for what we do and the lessons that we learn along the way.
You say it’s not relatable but you showed the pressure that can come with being on social media, something that is definitely relatable for younger viewers. How do you feel that was reflected in the episode?
I think the hardest thing to do is actually show vulnerability. It’s so easy to be brave in a crowd and be brave in front of cameras, but the hardest thing to do is show vulnerability.
I don’t show weaknesses, I don’t really openly talk about my struggles because I want to be brave. I’m a lone soldier, that’s what I want to be. But when you’re caught in a raw [moment], it’s so unfiltered, it’s so candid. A moment like that [after the race in Singapore], it’s hard to have a front and be brave and be fearless.
You will see that vulnerability, you’ll see me break, you’ll see my crash, you’ll see those tears come down my face. It’s tough. I’m saying it with a smile, but it took a while for me to deal with my demons, come to terms with all of that being shown on camera.
In the end, I realised that showing vulnerability is not actually a weakness, it’s a strength. I allowed myself to feel every emotion in that moment and still be a driver and come back even stronger for the next race, with a better mentality and a better attitude.
Sometimes you overthink things and it becomes a horror story in our head but, in reality, it’s a great story and it’ll always be a chapter in my book that I’ll have a bookmark on because of how much I valued every emotion and every single journey I had.
Your authenticity really comes through in the series, so how do you see your new role as a development driver for Cupra Kiro evolving your marketability?
Three or four years ago, we never really thought we’d go the distance. Let’s post some videos, let’s do the interviews and see where it goes. Maybe a race will come out of it, maybe a season if I’m lucky.
But hearing you say that I’m one of the most marketable motorsport athletes in the world, it’s very surreal. It sparks emotions within me because I wasn’t supposed to go the distance. I remember working for the first time with my manager, Darryl [O’Young] … I just told him that I’m willing to work hard. You want me to do a backflip in front of a camera, I’ll do it.
Four years ago, I didn’t speak fluent English because it’s not my first language and I realised how important storytelling is because that’s your brand. You’re telling your story and you have to be able to speak a universal language, which is English.
That’s the only way you can ever tell your story the way you want it to be and be as authentic and as raw as possible. So I taught myself how to speak English, reading books, watching movies, [I] had tutors. I put the effort in not just outwards, but inwards.
I put in so much effort to make sure I can be the best version of myself, and that’s also putting myself in spaces outside of my comfort zone, one of them being fashion.
I grew up in the Philippines a little insecure of how I looked and how different I looked compared to others. Then I had to enter the world of fashion and marketing and always being in front of the camera. I was camera-shy actually, I wasn’t as bubbly and as extroverted as I probably sound now. I grew up being very introverted.
I had to change all that because of marketing, because I had to work with brands and I had to tell my story.
In that journey of bettering myself, people resonated with me and people enjoyed watching me grow up and make mistakes and be vulnerable, that’s what my brand is.
I have been very open in front of them and said sorry when needs be. I guess I’m a bit of an acquired taste, not everyone will [like it] but some do. I guess that sets me apart because I didn’t follow the rules. I didn’t stay inside my box, or the box that everyone built for me, I made it my own.
Everyday's a school day 💪
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) July 14, 2025
Bianca Bustamante is loving her time at the Berlin Rookie Test @Hankook_Sport #BerlinEPrix pic.twitter.com/jdh2h1pWTe
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How much do you value being associated with a series that lowers barriers to entry?
We’re not just a number on the grid. It’s not just a publicity act to be politically correct. I entered the paddock and I was treated like a driver. I love getting my head down and working with the team, conversing with engineers and being treated like an equal.
But they empower women. Formula E has been in the front line breaking the barriers, putting 20 female drivers in Formula E cars during the all-women test in Jarama, Madrid. That’s unheard of, that’s never been done before.
It was groundbreaking because one opportunity led to another and here I am now as a development driver [for Cupra Kiro]. Not just to do a test, but to really engulf myself in the Formula E championship and have my eyes set on doing whatever the future holds – maybe a race, maybe a season.
That is now a possibility because Formula E opened all the doors and windows for us. None of it would have been possible if it weren’t for all those male and female allies that gave us a chance to give it a shot.
I set the third-fastest lap time in that test and that’s all it took, one opportunity, right? That’s so important because if the girls don’t drive the car, you can’t actually tell if we deserve it or not.
Formula E is working relentlessly to make sure that we get what we deserve and they’ve done an amazing job with that, but also showcasing the role of motorsport to the masses.
Formula E races in the hearts of all the major cities like Jakarta, London, Berlin, and during those weekends they work alongside Women in Motorsport and Girls on Track to bring 100 or 200 young girls to the track and give them the experience.
It’s so eye opening and it’s all down to representation. It’s about passing the torch a little bit brighter to the next generation – the future drivers, the future engineers, the future mechanics.
It’s all thanks to everyone behind Formula E for making all those things possible.
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