Lee Min-jae, a prodigy driver born in 2012 who has dominated South Korea's karting scene, is stepping past the barrier of adult racing to take on a new motorsport arena: electric vehicle competition.
Motorsport team MIK Racing said it has signed Lee, a second-year student at Hopyeong Middle School, to a three-year deal covering the 2027 through 2029 seasons. Lee is scheduled to compete from the 2027 season in eN1, the top electric vehicle class of the Hyundai N Festival. Ahead of that, he will enter the N1 class at the final round of the 2026 Hyundai N Festival to begin adjusting to the series.
Lee has grown steadily on the domestic scene since taking up karting in 2019 at age 7. Starting with a win in the micro class of the 2020 Korea Kart Championship, he claimed four consecutive series titles — the micro class in 2021 and the mini class in 2022 and 2023. His record of 27 wins in 38 career starts, a win rate of 71.1%, has drawn the attention of motorsport fans.
Lee's rate of progress goes beyond what is expected of drivers his age. Last year, as a first-year middle school student, he skipped the junior class and entered the Rotax Senior class, the country's top tier filled with veteran drivers, where he became the youngest winner of the North Chungcheong Governor's Cup.
He went on to win four of nine rounds in the senior class of this year's KARA Kart Championship, becoming the youngest series champion in the event's history. Given that leading drivers in South Korea typically move up to the adult level in the second or third year of high school, at ages 17 or 18, he is running three to four years ahead of schedule. The result follows years of overseas experience built up since elementary school, drawing on the racing DNA of his father, Lee Dong-wook, the first South Korean driver to compete in European F3.
"I'm very much looking forward to the new challenge with MIK Racing," Lee said. "Rather than settling for what I've achieved so far, I'll learn step by step with the team and show that I keep growing in the eN1 electric race car."