Filipina racer Bianca Bustamante struggled in the third round of the 2023 F1 Academy on Sunday, May 21, at the Citcuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
In the first race, Bustamante launched her car from P6 and stormed her way to P4, missing out on the podium by only three tenths of a second off behind third-placer and teammate Marta García.
Bustamante then lined up in the second row in P3 for the second race in the top eight reverse grid order of Qualifying 1. However, the teen racer encountered some issues in the race start and had a stall, which ended up with her losing places. The 18-year-old went on to catch up to the pack and managed to get to P13, but another misfortune struck when Bustamante made contact and spun in the path of teammate Chloe Chong in the final lap. Bustamante finished the second race in P13 with no points. For the third race, Bustamante couldn’t get a decent grip of the race leader and drove past the flag with a single point in hand in P10. “With learning comes mistakes and I made a few of those this weekend, especially race 2 where I stalled on the start from P3, and also had contact on the race which in turn destroyed my good tires for race 3 today. I don't shy away from admitting I made mistakes because it's part of the learning process, but the most critical point is to learn from these mistakes and leave the weekend a better driver,” Bustamante wrote in an Instagram post. It was a fairly unpleasant race weekend for the Filipina racer who was coming off her maiden career win two weeks ago in Valencia. Bustamante earned 13 points this weekend, but moved a notch lower from P6 to P7 with 57 points in the drivers’ standings, where her PREMA teammate García continues to lead with 137 points. The teen racer is back in Italy, where the Italian ream is based to prepare in the simulator for the next race in about a month. Bustamante eyes to earn valuable points when F1 Academy races at Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands for the round four on June 23 to 25.
*Bianca Bustamante (from Instagram)
*Bustamante then lined up in the second row in P3 for the second race in the top eight reverse grid order of Qualifying 1. However, the teen racer encountered some issues in the race start and had a stall, which ended up with her losing places. The 18-year-old went on to catch up to the pack and managed to get to P13, but another misfortune struck when Bustamante made contact and spun in the path of teammate Chloe Chong in the final lap. Bustamante finished the second race in P13 with no points. For the third race, Bustamante couldn’t get a decent grip of the race leader and drove past the flag with a single point in hand in P10. “With learning comes mistakes and I made a few of those this weekend, especially race 2 where I stalled on the start from P3, and also had contact on the race which in turn destroyed my good tires for race 3 today. I don't shy away from admitting I made mistakes because it's part of the learning process, but the most critical point is to learn from these mistakes and leave the weekend a better driver,” Bustamante wrote in an Instagram post. It was a fairly unpleasant race weekend for the Filipina racer who was coming off her maiden career win two weeks ago in Valencia. Bustamante earned 13 points this weekend, but moved a notch lower from P6 to P7 with 57 points in the drivers’ standings, where her PREMA teammate García continues to lead with 137 points. The teen racer is back in Italy, where the Italian ream is based to prepare in the simulator for the next race in about a month. Bustamante eyes to earn valuable points when F1 Academy races at Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands for the round four on June 23 to 25.