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Even as a racer, Bianca Bustamante’s online presence is a huge part of her hustle.
Bianca Bustamante doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. In fact, she thrives in it.
Basking in the glow of three million social media followers, the Filipina racing sensation — also known as Bia to her loving fans — was even recognized last year as one of the world’s most marketable athletes. Ranked #64 on SportsPro Media and NorthStar Solutions Group’s 2024 list of the top 150 Most Marketable Athletes in the world, she was the eighth motorsports athlete listed, along with big Formula 1 names, such as Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and Carlos Sainz. She was also the second-most marketable athlete in her teens, only after football rising star Lamine Yamal.
And just this month, she was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 European list.
Bianca Bustamante races in elite company.
Her popularity shot through the roof when she became the first female racer to join the McLaren Driver Development program when she was racing in the all-female F1 Academy. The young driver’s fans loved to keep up with her journey as a race car driver, as she provided rare insight into this exclusive club — not to mention that she was often around F1 fan-favorites Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the McLaren garage.
But she is also honest about being as active as she is on social media.
“It’s terrifying. It’s petrifying to kind of be an open book for everyone,” she admitted in a recent digital press conference. “I’ve always been very honest and very me [on social media], so when I do succeed, you see the real me. And when I make mistakes, you also tend to see the real me.
“So I think there are pros and cons to that. Obviously for me, I needed to use social media as a tool to fund my racing career. So I knew the only way to do that is to offer people something different that they just want to share. And I know that it’s the vulnerability, it’s the openness, it’s the connection that people have always been interested in. The more I spoke about my struggles, the more I spoke about my heartbreaks, or my happy moments, or my success openly, the more people seemed to like it.”
The 20-year-old Filipina is also very open about the fact that social media is also a part of her job. Inasmuch as it is a fun space for her to express her personality, it is also a platform she uses to fund her career. Her three million followers are just as much of an asset as her racing abilities. Her personality that she so openly shares online is a tool that attracts media attention and brand deals (for instance, she recently announced that she is part of the On family as one of the brand’s newest Global Ambassadors), and this is all a part of the grind.
But beyond paying the bills of such an expensive sport, Bianca Bustamante is also aware that her online presence is about so much more. As a Filipina race car driver, she is proud to represent her country on the global stage.
“[Motorsports] is a very male-dominated space. Not a lot of women are kind of encouraged to pursue it. But not just that, there’s not many Filipinos that were encouraged to pursue racing. So I found that, or I made it my personal endeavor to not just represent, but to encourage and inspire and show the next generation that anything is possible.
“We were never really known for sports, but now we’ve got multiple athletes representing us and not just in basketball or football, but actually in tennis, like Alex Eala. She’s a friend of mine and watching her succeed and rally through all of it is incredible. So yeah, seeing a lot of fellow Filipino and Filipina athletes really push through and break boundaries and barriers is incredible. And that is why I do what I do as well.”
This year, now a graduate from the F1 Academy, Bustamante is about to take on a new challenge in her racing career. Set to compete in the GB3 Championship, the United Kingdom’s premier single-seater category, she is stepping up to a new level, driving a more powerful car in a mixed-grid with both female and male drivers.
Now representing Elite Motorsports, Bianca is one of the few female racers who will be competing in the 2025 season of the GB3 Championship. Thus, she is not only representing the Philippines; she is also representing all the women in motorsport who hope to race at the highest level.
And she is now noticing more and more of them rising to the top.
“Everywhere I look, every race I go to, there’s more female karters, there’s more female fans, there’s more female mechanics, there’s more female engineers. And that is something we’ve never had in the sport. We never had strength in numbers.
“When you look at the pool of men and females in the paddock, it is very male-dominated. Like, there’s never, there isn’t currently, and I don’t think there’s ever been a female team manager in Formula 1. So I think those are changes that will eventually happen, but it takes, again, that voice of a group of people and team and individuals to make, yeah, for it to be heard and to be seen.”
Bianca Bustamante feels proud to be a part of the growth of women in motorsports. And the field is set to gain even more attention when Netflix releases its highly anticipated docu-series on the F1 Academy, which the Filipina is also a part of.
More media appearances, more brand deals, and more races — we are certainly going to be seeing much more of Bianca in 2025.
As someone who is so often in the limelight, the young F1 Academy race winner openly acknowledges, “It is very scary sometimes because it’s very, it’s a very fine line…
“Yes, it’s work, but at the same time, it’s also me…That is Bia. That is who I am. That’s my personality. And it’s very easy to kind of lose yourself along the way, lose your sights, lose your morals, lose who you really are.”
But one thing that keeps her going? The support she has gained from her three million-plus followers online.
“All the support, all the likes, all the follows, all the comments, every single one of them I take to heart. It fuels me even further to reach my goals. I’m doing all this for everyone back home in the Philippines.”
Banner images from Bianca Bustamante on Instagram.