Cover Filipina racer Bianca Bustamante will kick off her GB3 season at Silverstone on April 26/27. After two years of F1 Academy, this event marks her debut in GB3 (Photo: CBR Media)
Filipina racer Bianca Bustamante will kick off her GB3 season at Silverstone on April 26/27. After two years of F1 Academy, this event marks her debut in GB3 (Photo: CBR Media)
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With her GB3 debut, Bianca Bustamante enters the most demanding stretch of her journey yet. She discusses her training, the pressures of mixed-grid racing and what it means to grow into the driver—and person—she’s always hoped to become
Bianca Bustamante has always known how to race. What she’s learning now is how to rise. A year after leaving the Philippines for London, the 20-year-old is gearing up for her biggest challenge yet: her debut with Elite Motorsport in the GB3 Championship, the UK’s premier single-seater category.
She’s coming off two years in the F1 Academy, where she proved she had the pace and composure to hang with the best in her class. GB3 is a different kind of proving ground. The cars are quicker, the grip is higher and the stakes—on and off the track—are a notch more unforgiving. Silverstone Grand Prix, one of racing’s most storied circuits, will be her first test, alongside 30 racers.
The return to mixed-grid racing marks a turning point. For the first time since her karting days, Bustamante will compete against both men and women in a field that mirrors the path to elite motorsport. It’s no longer about learning the ropes. It’s about showing she belongs.
There’s pressure, of course. There always is at this level. But Bustamante shares that she carries it well. She knows what’s on the line. GB3 is where reputations are made and careers take shape. And right now, she’s exactly where she needs to be. To expound more on the topic, she answered questions from the media in a recent roundtable discussion.
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Above Bianca Bustamante (Photo: CBR Media)
Bianca Bustamante (Photo: CBR Media)
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Bianca, how are you doing, and what have you been up to?
It’s been a while since we’ve done a press conference. Honestly, I’m feeling really good here in London. Everything’s been good, for we’ve done everything we can to prepare over the season, to make sure that we come well into the first race of the year as prepared as possible.
Honestly, I’m just living the dream. I never would have imagined that I would make it this far into my career and be able to compete in GB3. Making this huge step in my career forward, it’s been such an exhilarating journey with a lot of ups and downs, but [I] always face it with a smile on my face.
Above Inside Bianca Bustamante’s training (Photos: CBR Media)
Inside Bianca Bustamante’s training (Photos: CBR Media)
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We saw on your socials in the past week that you seem to be having an intense past few days. There are a lot of things that you did at that training facility. Can you run us through it?
Yeah, the past week has been intense. We just finished our preseason training camp in Annecy, France. It’s essentially a seven-day training camp where you’re normally training from 9am to 5pm—so it’s intense curling. It’s both physical, mental, neuro, cognitive training, grip, low vision, grip strength, and neck muscle core. But not just that, we were also setting new baseline references for the rest of the year. I think that was one of the best things about the trip: I got to actually quantify how much I’ve grown over the past years.
Above Bianca Bustamante in action (Photos: CBR Media)
Bianca Bustamante in action (Photos: CBR Media)
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How are you feeling about the upcoming season and your new team, Elite Motorsport?
I’m taking everything in. Like, every time I go to the track, I see the team, I see the car. I’m like, bright-eyed, wide-smiled every single time. I am really like, just filled with lots of emotions.
I’ve always said it’s progress that makes everything so worth it—the journey, the unknown, the fear, the butterflies you get before you get in a car, the butterflies you get when you do your first lap, when you put new tires on, when you warm up. Everything still feels new, even though I’ve been raising single-seaters for quite a while. I get in the car, and I still feel like I know nothing. I feel like a rookie every single time, which I am. It’ll be my rookie season in the GB3 championship. There are a lot of new things that I have to understand, that I have to learn … So I’ve been loving it. I’ve been loving the growth.
Can you tell us more about the growth from your first season in the F1 Academy to the last and how you think that growth has brought you to where you are now?
I do hope that my actions can speak for themselves. It’s hard to realise how much you’ve grown until you’re put in a situation where you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m no longer afraid’—like I am way more composed. I’m way more level-headed. I can think through things and can actually respond rather than react in certain scenarios. I no longer let my emotions get over everything. So, I think when you’re put in those situations, you realise how much you’ve grown, but on a day-to-day basis, I still feel as clueless as I did when I was 17. I think growth is just that—it’s hard to see from day to day. And obviously, we’ve got social media to keep track of how much we’ve improved and progressed.
I think the best part of all of it is the fact that I’ve got my dream scenario. The dream scenario for me is to have my own flat somewhere in Europe, to be racing in GB3, and having the best training programme, having the best coaches, having the best this and that, and having a good team with me and like never have to worry about the financial difficulties and actually focus on racing. And for me, that is growth, because I am now able to put myself in my dream scenario where all I can do now is just focus: focus on the job, focus on racing, focus on driving.
Above Bianca Bustamante heads into GB3 with grit, grace, and her biggest challenge yet (Photos: CBR Media)
Bianca Bustamante heads into GB3 with grit, grace, and her biggest challenge yet (Photos: CBR Media)
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With the race at Silverstone coming up, what are your goals for this season?
I’ve got multiple goals. I can’t even keep track of all of them. To be honest, we’ve got our short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. I’d say for the short term, we’ve got the season opener coming up in a week and a half or so.
Everyone around me, the team around me, even myself, know that it will be a struggle. A lot of drivers in the championship will be in their second year racing GB3. So that itself is already a disadvantage for me, knowing that I’m coming into a new championship and racing for the first time on these cars—it’ll be physical. So I think the name of the game is giving it our best shot; at the same time, aiming for it like I want to finish in the top 10 score points. I think that’ll be a great way to start the season. I know it will be difficult. It’ll be my first time racing in such a long format as well. It’ll be a very physical week, but I’m so so happy. I’m really looking forward to struggling, to making the most out of it, but in learning as well. I hope that I’ll be able to grow and be stronger by the end of all of it, and I know that I’ve got a great team with me.
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Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is the assistant digital editor of Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
