Cheng began karting in China in 1996, winning the Beijing Shunxiang Cup in both 1996 and 1997. He took the Chinese national karting championship in the junior division in 1998, then won the senior championship outright in 2000 and 2001, making three national titles in total. In international competition he finished 15th at the 1999 European Karting Open and took the Macau Karting Championship the same year. He was runner-up in the 2001 Asian Karting Championship.
Cheng entered the British Formula Ford Winter Series in 2001 to begin his single-seater career. In 2003 he joined the McLaren Formula One team's driver development programme, one of the first Chinese drivers to be integrated into a major manufacturer's junior structure. He competed for A1 Team China in the A1 Grand Prix series from the 2006–07 season through the 2008–09 season. He also raced in the Formula Three Euroseries in 2008.
The most historically significant chapter of Cheng's career came in endurance racing, where he twice set precedents for Chinese participation at the sport's premier events.
At the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans, Cheng's Saulnier Team LMP2 Pescarolo finished third in the LMP2 class, behind entries from van Merksteijn and Team Essex, both running Porsche Spyder LMP2 machinery. This result made Cheng the first Chinese driver to participate, finish, and score a class podium at Le Mans.
On 23–24 May 2009, Cheng raced in the ADAC Nurburgring 24 Hours alongside teammates Altfrid Heger, Carlo van Dam, and Franck Mailleux in Volkswagen Motorsport III's number 116 VW Scirocco GT 24, a 1,984cc four-cylinder car weighing 1,100 kilograms. The car finished 20th overall and third in the SP3T class, behind Volkswagen Motorsport II's number 118 VW Scirocco GT 24 and the number 107 Audi A3. The result made Cheng the first Chinese driver to participate, finish, and score a class podium at the Nurburgring 24 Hours, adding a second historic milestone alongside his Le Mans achievement.
In 2010, Cheng competed in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters for Mercedes, becoming the second Asian driver to race in the series, after Japan's Katsutomo Kaneishi in 2003. In November 2011, Cheng partnered with 1998 and 1999 Formula One World Champion Mika Hakkinen and Lance David Arnold to drive a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG at the 2011 6 Hours of Zhuhai, a round of the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.
Cheng Congfu's career traced the emergence of Chinese drivers in international motorsport during the 2000s and early 2010s. His Le Mans and Nurburgring 24 Hours class podiums were concrete firsts that placed Chinese participation in endurance racing on record, and his inclusion in the McLaren development programme reflected the growing commercial and developmental interest major manufacturers were beginning to invest in Chinese motorsport talent.
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