Asian championships Born in
Changsha,
Hunan Province, Cao began karting in 1999 at the age of six, and would compete in the China National Karting Championship for the first time in 2003. In 2009, at the age of sixteen, Cao, alongside
Zhu Daiwei, would become the first Chinese driver in history to compete in the
FIA World Karting Championship. Cao stepped up to
single-seater racing in 2008, competing in the Chinese
Formula Ford Campus Championship. He won five races and clinched the championship with an advantage of seven points. Also in 2008, Cao finished third with seven podiums in the
Asian Formula Renault Challenge and also contested two races of the
Formula BMW Pacific Championship, with Pacific Racing. In
2009, Cao remained in Formula BMW Pacific but switched to
Ao's Racing. He had six point-scoring finishes in nine races, finishing twelfth in the championship. In
2010, Cao returned to the Asian Formula Renault Challenge with the
FRD Racing Team. He won five out of the six races he contested – one more than champion
Sandy Stuvik – and finished fourth in the championship.
Protyre Formula Renault In
2012, Cao moved to Europe and joined
Fortec Motorsports to compete in
Formula Renault BARC. He finished nine races in the points to take fourteenth position in the championship, with 100 points. He also finished fifth in the 2012 Formula Renault BARC Winter Series. Cao remained with Fortec into 2013, staying in the newly renamed
Protyre Formula Renault Championship. He won a race at
Rockingham and finished fourth in the final championship standings. He finished runner-up to
Ben Barnicoat in the Protyre Formula Renault Autumn Cup at Rockingham, winning one of the event's three races.
British Formula 3 Championship Cao continued his collaboration with Fortec into the
British Formula 3 Championship in
2014. He finished fifteen races on the podium, including four wins. He battled with his teammate Matt Rao for the title, and clinched the championship by just two points, ahead of Rao. ==Racing record==