Britain's youngest racing driver is four-year-old with eyes on Formula 1 - and he's from Solihull
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00:00I'm Rafe, I'm four years old, and I race go-karts.
00:09My name's Lionel, I'm Rafe's father.
00:11And I'm Amadip, and I'm Rafe's mother.
00:13We started Rafe at two years old in an electric kart that we just bought online.
00:18We started driving it around the dining table, didn't we?
00:21Yeah.
00:22And then you wanted to race, so we had to get another one.
00:25And then we all started driving around together, didn't we?
00:29The table one was like NASCAR.
00:32A little bit like NASCAR, yeah, it goes round and over.
00:35And then from then, we built a track outside and, yeah, upped the speed on the kart so it was a little bit quicker.
00:42And then that was too slow, so then we bought another one, which was bigger, a bit more powerful.
00:47And then, yeah, eventually when he was able to get into a proper go-kart, we got in touch with Harry at MPH Academy.
00:55And, yeah, started at the beginning of the year.
00:58Satin?
00:59Yeah, I think Satin Hill was the track we sat on.
01:01Lionel's much better at handling it.
01:03I think it took me a little bit of adjustment, but when I see him on the track and how well he responds to his coaches, his training,
01:12and, you know, just generally he listens to instructions so well, I think with all of that it's made me feel a lot more at ease and confident.
01:21I think at the start I was definitely a little bit nervous.
01:24But when I looked at how professional the training was with the coaches at MPH, they put health and safety right at the top, so that put me at ease.
01:34And I feel like he understands that, you know, when he's in the kart, that safety is very, very important and that he listens.
01:42All of that combined has just made me feel a lot more confident when he is in there because I feel like he actually takes the knowledge in properly.
01:50What's your favourite thing about racing in the go-karts?
01:54The go-karts are really fast.
01:57How fast can you go?
02:0040 miles an hour.
02:02Wow.
02:04What was it like on the track today?
02:07The go-kart was fast, and I didn't know how he did the understeers, and I don't know how I speeded.
02:16And what do you think of your coaches?
02:20They're nice.
02:23Would you like to be a racing driver when you grow up?
02:26Yes.
02:27Yeah? Who's your favourite racing driver at the moment?
02:29Charles Leclerc.
02:30Who?
02:31Charles Leclerc.
02:33Charles Leclerc.
02:34You know, you never know what to expect with your children, what they're going to be into, what they like, what they enjoy.
02:41You know, we've started Rafe with racing, and he's really enjoying it.
02:45He's really showing a lot of promise and talent and commitment.
02:50And, yeah, really, really excited for his future.