Red carpet events. Big fashion moments. Meaningful initiatives. Off the track, Bianca Bustamante is keeping herself busy.
Bianca Bustamante is living the dream in more ways than one.
Anyone out of the three million people who follow Bianca on her social media platforms knows this. She scored her dream job as a professional racer competing in the F1 Academy for ART Grand Prix and she is one of the few drivers in the McLaren Driver Development Program, working on the same team as F1 drivers Lando Norries and Oscar Piastri.
All this at 19 years old? Sometimes, Bianca still can’t believe it herself.
But her life on the track — traveling from country to country, racing against some of the best female drivers in the world, and even attending F1 races from the McLaren garage — only covers her glittering career. Off the track, her life is nearly, if not just as vibrant.
Cover girl
Bianca Bustamante is one of the most well-known female racers, not just in the Philippines, but in the world. As mentioned, she has three million followers across all her social media platforms, and in 2023, she was even recognized as the third-most influential female racing driver based on her online following and search demand.
She’s an internet sensation, and fans love watching her life as a racer driver unfold, so much so that it even caught the attention of Vogue.
Earlier this year, she was photographed in the McLaren Technology Centre for a feature in Vogue Magazine. This was a dream come true for the Filipina racer, as she wrote in her social media caption, “17yr old Bia wouldn’t have believed this was coming her way.”
Later this year, what started as a feature on Vogue’s US website was soon followed by something even more major: in July this year, Bianca was featured on the cover of Vogue Philippines.
“Never in a million years did I think I would be on the cover of Vogue,” she shared with a group of media representatives and fans when she was home for her “Race to Inspire” event last week.
“When it came out, I was sleeping, so I was the last person to see it because Vogue didn’t send me anything. I didn’t even how I looked like, how the photos were like, which photos they were gonna use, I just hoped I looked good. So when it came out, everyone sent it to me. I woke up to a hundred messages and phone calls. They were like, ‘Bia, Bia! Your Vogue cover came out!’ And I didn’t even know. And I looked at it, and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s actually me, and that’s my name.'”
Many girls dream of being on the cover of Vogue. This is another dream fulfilled for 19-year-old Bianca.
Meaningful collabs
With a platform as big as hers, Bianca often does her best to give back to her community in different ways, from simply carrying the Philippine flag in the competitive motorsports team to creating her own initiatives to help her community.
One creative way she was able to do this was by collaborating with the chocolate brand, Marsatta Chocolates.
Marsatta Chocolates is a chocolate brand based in Southern California. Their specialty is their bean-to-bar chocolates that only use the best ingredients, and this year, they created a Bianca special.
As Bianca herself shared with the press, “We just wanted to connect something to help everyone back home in the Philippines, to connect myself to the Philippine community, and at the same time share a passion of mine which is eating chocolates…
“As much as I am a driver, there are a lot of things I’m passionate about, and I want to help my community and help everyone back home. The flavor of the chocolate is actually ube. So I wanted something that could show my Filipino culture and cuisine to the world, so we had an ube brownie chocolates.”
Something that Bianca feels deeply about is giving back to the underprivileged, so while this was a fun and tasty collaboration for her, it also meant a lot, as all the proceeds from the sales of her specially made chocolate bars were donated to Kusinang Kulina, which is Gawad Kalinga’s initiative to bring food to the underprivileged kids in the Philippines.
On the carpet
Indeed, Bianca’s life off the track has been busy, to say the least. From magazine photoshoots to meaningful brand partnerships, it feels like this youngster is truly doing everything, and we haven’t even talked about her first carpet appearance from this year yet.
Just a few weeks after the announcement of her collaboration with Marsatta, Bianca jetted off to Los Angeles to attend the Gold Gala, which was the annual awards ceremony for the 100 Asian Pacific leaders who impacted culture and society.
As an influential Filipina competing on the international stage, it felt fitting to see Bianca among the attendees of the event.
But she was in disbelief. “It was crazy,” she shared. “In the span of one week, I was on track, I made the chocolates, and then I went to the gold gala. So obviously, I felt like a princess during that time.
“I was surrounded by inspiring Asians and the Asian Community, that’s what the Gold Gala is about, it’s about bringing together a community of empowering Asians in sports, in movies, in TV series — everything. So I got to go there, I got to dress up in this blue dress, and I felt like Cinderella. And it was amazing to walk my very first carpet, and all of those things that I’d never thought I’d get to experience at the age of 19, to be honest, and I did and it was amazing.”
With everything she’s got going for her, Bianca’s time truly is now, and it is incredible to see her thrive.
Banner images from Bianca Bustamante on Instagram.