Singapore has produced Olympians and world champions in swimming and sprinting, but never a Formula 1 driver. A 16-year-old named Kareen Kaur is working hard to change that — and she's already collecting firsts along the way.
Kaur is Singapore's first female F4 racing driver, and earlier this year she became the first Singaporean picked for the F1 Academy Rookie Test, an initiative that develops young female drivers toward higher levels of the sport. Only 18 female drivers worldwide were invited to Europe to test for the Academy, and Kaur — who had never raced on European circuits — impressed enough to earn the Rookie Test selection.
Her route to single-seaters began, as it does for most racers, with karting. Aged nine, she tried a session at the karting track at Turf City near Bukit Timah after lunch with her father, and was hooked. The 29R Racing Development team spotted her, and she climbed through Cadet, Junior and Senior categories, racing across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. In 2025 she posted some of her best karting results, finishing third in the ROK Cup Singapore Championship, before stepping up to F4 cars in both the Indian and Southeast Asian series — a leap she describes as a completely different challenge, with heavier cars, downforce, tyre management and braking zones to master.
What stands out is her mindset. She treats racing as a data puzzle: even after a good race, there's always a corner or braking point to refine. And despite the roar of the engine, she calls the race car her calm space.
The year ahead is packed. She's preparing for the Formula Trophy Malaysia (an F4 series running alongside F1 in Malaysia), the China GT Championship, and the Sepang 12 Hours endurance race at Sepang International Circuit. The long-term goal is obvious: Formula 1, racing under the Singapore flag.
She's doing all this while still at school — balancing studies with a spot on her school's netball team — and draws inspiration from Singaporean athletes like swimmer Joseph Schooling and sprinter Shanti Pereira, plus British driver Abbi Pulling, the 2024 F1 Academy champion who became the first woman to win a GB3 race in 2025.
Why should holidaymakers care? Because a Singapore F1 story adds a fresh layer to the city's biggest annual event, the Singapore Grand Prix. And if you're a motorsport fan travelling in Southeast Asia, Kaur's upcoming calendar doubles as a handy hit-list: the Sepang circuit just outside Kuala Lumpur hosts F1 support races and endurance events, while grassroots karting tracks around Singapore are where it all started. Watching a national sporting story unfold in real time is one of the better reasons to time a trip around a race weekend.
