Filipina teen from PH and California makes car racing history

Bustamante started go-carting at age 3, competing in go-kart races at Sonoma Raceway, in San Francisco Bay Area. TWITTER

Bianca Bustamante, 18, is the first Filipino to win an F1 Academy race with PREMA Racing. F1Academy is an all-female Formula-4 level racing championship series founded by Formula 1.

Bustamante a resident of both Laguna, Philippines and San Jose California, and is the daughter of Raymund and Janice Bustamante. Race driver Darryl O’Young is her sporting and business manager.

Bustamante started go-carting at age 3, competing in go-kart races at Sonoma Raceway, in San Francisco Bay Area. She won the Macau International Kart Grand Prix at the age of nine.

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Her inspiration is former NASCAR and IndyCar racer Danica Patrick and dreams of racing in the main F1 series, IndyCar, or NASCAR.

“My dad was an O-F-W. He was an overseas Filipino worker in America in San Jose so there he worked a lot in construction,” Bustamante told KGO-TV’s J.R. Stone.

“He worked three jobs to give money for my racing to put food on the table and because of this I rarely saw him and that’s why it meant so much that I won because it wasn’t just for me. It was for every Filipino out there, especially when the anthem was played.”