After making history as the first female Formula 4 driver to complete the Macau Grand Prix, Vivian Siu believes she’s proof that nothing is impossible, as long as you are willing to try
When Vivian Siu climbed out of her car after crossing the finish line at the Macau Grand Prix in 2023, she broke down in tears. She had just become the first woman to complete the race in its 70-year history. It’s considered one of the most dangerous races in the world, as Macau’s Guia Circuit presents a brutal combination of high-speed straights and impossibly tight corners. For even the most seasoned professional drivers, it’s daunting; Siu was an amateur racer with a full-time day job.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s history written forever,” she says. For her, finishing the race was not just a personal triumph but also an accomplishment that offered an empowering message to others: “I came from nothing. I was a high-school dropout, I was [nearly] homeless and both of my parents died. If someone with my background can do something so crazy and impossible, I hope anyone can have the spirit to try and do something they have always wanted to but don’t believe they can.”
Siu’s rise in the sport has been captured in ‘Zero to Macao’, a documentary by independent film director Jonathan Finnigan. Siu wears Anteprima bralette and shirt (Photo: The Buffacow)
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When she was eight years old, Siu’s single mother moved with her to New York in a bid to provide her with a better future. They arrived with very little money, so they lived in a tiny studio flat, where they shared an air mattress each night. Slowly, Siu integrated into her local school, but her mother struggled to adjust. She held part-time jobs, such as working in nail salons and as a masseuse, while continuing to be Siu’s sole caregiver.
When she was 16, Siu’s life took a devastating turn: her mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer; she died five months later. “I didn’t know what to do with my life,” she says. “The only person who cared about me was gone. It was very traumatic not to know where life would end up.” As a minor without a legal guardian, she faced the possibility of going into foster care; to avoid that likelihood, she dropped out of secondary school and returned to Hong Kong.
She spent the next three and a half years in survival mode—bouncing between friends’ homes and doing part-time jobs to make ends meet. But her mother’s wish for Siu to receive a great education and secure employment—the motivation behind the move to the US—drove Siu to leave what she described as a “directionless” life and return to the States at the age of 19. “I didn’t want to disappoint her, even though she wasn’t with us any more,” she says.
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