EXCLUSIVE: McLaren F1 starlet reveals 'AMAZING' offseason change factor

With nearly 60 decades of F1 experience behind them, it's little wonder that having McLaren as your team can make such a difference when preparing for an upcoming season.

For Bianca Bustamante, McLaren's F1 Academy entry, the support of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri's team has helped her prepare for her sophomore season in the all-female championship.

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Bustamante spoke exclusively with GPFans at a rainy Jerez as she prepared for her 2024 campaign by getting some early racing laps in a winter F4 championship

However, that was just the tip of the iceberg for her off-season readiness, Bustamante explained: "This year, I feel like I'm coming in a bit more prepared. I have the support of McLaren with me, which is truly, truly amazing.

"There's on-track support, off-track, coaching, mental... literally the whole package that you need to be as a racing driver, which is really amazing.

"An amazing opportunity for me. Having a chance to develop and everything, so everything's been going really good.

"We're just doing our best to prepare for the start of the season."

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Bianca Bustamante's 2024 F1 Academy Preparation

One of F1 Academy's selling points for the young drivers it attracts is the plentiful track time available to develop into a strong racer, something Bustamante's previous championship, W Series, struggled with.

"We just finished our three days of testing at Barcelona a few weeks ago," details Bustamante.

"That was really positive. We had pace within the top three, so that was really good.

"And now, we're wrapping up the weekend here at the winter series in F4, competing with really good drivers to kind of see where an area for us to work on.

"Obviously, the weather and the track condition haven't been the kindest to us this weekend," she says, gesturing to the stop-start rain falling over the Jerez circuit "But we're doing our best to really just maximise from every single scenario and this is what we're given, and we're doing our best to deal with it."

F1 Academy gets underway this weekend in Jeddah for Round 1.

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