MANILA, Philippines — Bianca Bustamante will be racing in the top-flight women's single-seater racing championship W Series for at least two years.
This as she was selected to race for the W Series Academy Team, which is an exclusive program designed to support the development of young female talent in motorsports.
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With her seat for the next two seasons in tact, the 17-year-old Filipina driver will be able to focus on driver development.
It was announced that Bustamante was one of five rookies chosen for the 2022 season last week.
In the W Series Academy Team, Bustamante will have a dedicated engineer throughout the season and will offer a consistent competitive environment as she shifts from karting to formula racing.
She will be joining Juju Noda of Japan in the team.
"I'm so thrilled to be part of W Series this season! Being selected to drive for the Academy Team programme is an additional privilege, as it reaffirms W Series’ confidence and faith in my racing abilities," said Bustamante.
"W Series aims to give opportunities to the most talented female racing drivers in the world, and we have been tracking the progress of Bianca and Juju for some time now. We knew they had raw skill but, since joining us and working with the team at this year’s pre-season tests, they’ve also shown consistency in the car and a willingness to learn. We’ve put our faith in them by giving them W Series race seats for two years and dedicated race engineers, and it’s now up to them to repay it by continuing to work hard," said W Series Racing Director Dave Ryan.
Bustamante will make her W Series debut with the rest of the grid in the 2022 season opener in Miami this May.
The W Series will be featuring in eight weekends of the F1 calendar as they are a support race of the premiere single-seater racing championship.
Also among the tracks that the W Series will race in with F1 is in Silverstone and in France.