Bustamante: ‘We’ll fight back as always!’

Filipino race driver Bianca Bustamante expressed positivity despite her unfortunate run in her Formula 4 debut at the Macau Grand Prix last weekend.

“We’ll fight back as always!! A P9 in race one was a major improvement, and we gotta take that as a win to keep progressing,” Bustamante wrote in an Instagram post.

She called her experience in Macau a “tough lesson.”

While Bustamante retired from the race, she was able to achieve decent results in the treacherous Macau Guia street circuit.

Macau Guia, for the uninitiated, is known to be one of the most difficult street race tracks in the world.

The McLaren Driver Development Program racer finished 11th in the race qualifying and conquered a wet street track, which moved her up to ninth for the final heat. However, Bustamante had an untoward encounter in the very first lap of the last race, causing her a disappointing DNF (Did Not Finish).

“P11 in qualifying and a clean drive in a wet Race 1 moved us up to P9 for the final. We worked extra hard today to go over onboards and data improving my technique to close down the gap. But yea on lap 1 a driver out braked themselves, flew past me, and hit the wall in Lisboa, giving me absolutely no room to go which caused me to DNF,” Bustamante explained.

“For hours I was replaying how it all happened thinking of any other way I could’ve avoided it but it was just unavoidable. I gave it my best fight for a top eight but this one was out of our control,” she added.

Bustamante raced under the banner of BlackArts Racing for her maiden Formula 4 race where she drove a Tatuus F4-T421.

Photos from Bianca Bustamante’s Instagram account 

Also read: 

Bustamante becomes 1st female to enroll in McLaren Driver Development Program

Bustamante to race in USF Juniors

Bianca Bustamante claims maiden F1 Academy victory