SLOWLY running through each letter of the alphabet, Axel LaFlamme recalls looking intently at his mum to catch the moment she’d blink at him, finally confirming he’d reached the right one.
It was the only way the rising motorsport star could communicate with his beloved mother Blair as a child, after a tough battle with multiple sclerosis robbed her of her speech and movement before he’d even turned 10 years old.
Axel LaFlamme helped care for his mum until she passed away last yearCredit: Supplied
It’s a memory that will stay with Axel forever, and has inspired his incredible road to success in the elite world of motorsport – where he is now being hailed as the next Max Verstappen.
Brave Axel, now 17, began caring for his mum in their council estate home after his father left them when he was just two years old.
He remained Blair’s biggest support right through to her death in November last year, juggling his dedication to her with his determination to become a racing success.
It paid off, and Axel’s raw talent has seen him overtake legions of young drivers from more affluent backgrounds to win major karting championship titles and secure a significant sponsor to race in Formula E.
However, in a poignant first interview with the Sun Online, he now reveals that his success feels bittersweet following his mum’s death.
Axel LaFlamme has since been dubbed the next big racing star.Credit: Supplied
‘It was my job to make Mum laugh’
The racing sensation, whose unusual name stems from his mum’s French Canadian heritage, says: “My mum was an incredibly brave person and faced her illness with courage and dignity.
“I aspire to be like her both on and off the track. I miss her a lot but when I’m on the track, my frustrations come out in a good way. I feel unbeatable.”
Axel is no stranger to beating the odds. In fact, his very existence depended on it.
“My mum was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a year before I was born and this meant she had to take quite strong medication,” he recalls.
Axel LaFlamme has loved racing from a very young ageCredit: Supplied
“She never believed she would conceive a child but she did and it was me. I wasn’t supposed to be born but somehow I slipped through.”
He admits he never realised his childhood was any different to that of his friends until he reached seven or eight years old.
“I remember getting a bit confused at that stage. All my friends’ mums were up and about doing things and mine wasn’t,” he says.
“I have a vague recollection of thinking: ‘This isn’t right’.
My dad Luke left us when I was two so it was my job to try to make Mum laugh
Axel LaFlamme
“But my mum was still a fantastic laugh. She started losing her voice when I was three so after that there was a lot of grunting which I would have to translate.
“I would go through the alphabet and she would blink when I reached the right letters but sometimes she would trick me.
“My dad Luke left us when I was two so it was my job to try to make Mum laugh. It always felt like she was there with me.”
Racing an escape from bullying
A carer came to support Axel and his mum, a former vet, when he was four, and Axel also developed a close relationship with his maternal grandfather Richard, who first introduced him to racing.
Axel is thought to be following in the footsteps of Max VerstappenCredit: Getty Images – Getty
Axel was also a big fan of Schumacher growing upCredit: Reuters
Axel says: “Grandad always made sure I was well taken care of and raised properly. He has had a very strong involvement in my upbringing.”
In fact, it was Axel’s grandad who bought him his first significant vehicle when he was four – a yellow Little Tike car. He took him karting soon after.
“Every time I think about that car, it’s a warm memory for me. One of my mum’s carers helped me to customise it with spoilers.
“I also had hundreds of toy cars and Michael Schumacher paraphernalia. By the time I was four, I was watching Formula 1 regularly on TV in our little flat in Islington.”
As Axel’s mum’s illness grew progressively worse, he struggled to navigate his way through the tough, local schools where bullying was rife. Racing became an outlet for difficult feelings.
Axel has gone on to prove himself a strong contender in world racingCredit: Supplied
“By the time I was 10, mum was quite sick,” he says. “When her speaking went fully, that was pretty difficult.
“So racing became the escape. I could put my helmet on and focus on something I loved.
“Without racing, I could have ended up in a much worse place mentally. Worries just drop away on [the] track and I can kind of just focus and crack on.”
And crack on Axel did.
‘We were the poorest people there’
Grandad Richard, who ran a flooring company, raised enough money to buy him a blue Honda Cadet Octave kart and Axel won his first significant race in it at the Rye House track, in Hertfordshire, in 2011.
“I loved the racing community straight away,” he says. “It was nice to get away from all the rough kids on the estate where I lived.
“Grandad and I were some of the poorest people there but we just got on with it and tried to survive the best we could for as long as we could.”
Axel overcame the odds and has found happiness with girlfriend EmilyCredit: Supplied
Axel really began to turn heads in 2018 when he secured a stunning victory at the British Open Championships in a nail-biting race in which he started in 27th position but ultimately won by a clear five seconds – a huge margin in the ultra-competitive world of junior karting.
He reflects matter-of-factly: “When you start last, you’re not going to lose. In the first heat, the throttle cable came off my carburettor and the chain guard fell off too.
Grandad said: ‘We may as well leave now’, but my attitude was: ‘We’ve just got to keep truckin’.”
Modest in the face of major success
Power people in racing knew Axel’s name by the end of the race and Formula 1 veterans such as ex McLaren Formula 1 chief communications officer Matt Bishop were impressed.
He said at the time: “You can always tell the difference between the young drivers who are only there to fulfil their wealthy fathers’ unfulfilled ambitions to bring racing glory to the family name, and the odd super-quick kid who has next to nothing but is utterly committed to driving the wheels of his or her kart.
For me, it’s simple. I just ask myself: ‘How far forward can I go in every race?’”
Axel LaFlamme
“It’s win or bust for them. Nothing else matters. The best drivers in the world have always had that quality – Max Verstappen in particular has it in modern Formula 1 – and young Axel has it too. He’s always flat out, all the way.”
Axel is characteristically modest about such accolades.
He says: “I think people enjoyed watching me because I tend to do a lot of overtaking and be quite aggressive. For me, it’s simple. I just ask myself: ‘How far forward can I go in every race?’”
‘I’m doing it for her’
Currently studying for a BTech in Motorsport Engineering, Axel lives and breathes racing.
In fact, when he isn’t racing cars, he’s drawing them.
Many believe he has what it takes to achieve greatness in a sport which requires outlandish talent but also obscene amounts of money.
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He has the former but must look for more committed sponsors to help him with the latter.
For now he has found a compromise in the newly emerging world of electric racing: a single-seater motorsport championship that uses only electric cars.
The series was conceived in 2011, and the inaugural championship commenced in Beijing in September 2014. It is sanctioned by the FIA.
“It’s more realistic, more in my sponsor Next Energy’s target area, and I see it as a great opportunity,” he says. “I want to be the champion of whatever pinnacle I can get to. Formula E would be great.”
When Axel’s mum died last year, he was right by her side, as he has been all of her life.
“I know she would have wanted me to carry on with my dream and I’m determined to do it for her and all the other people who are willing me to succeed,” he says.
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Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
