Max Verstappen

📍Maaseik, Limburg, Belgium

“Max Verstappen was born in Hasselt, Belgium, in September 1997, into a racing family. His father, Jos, is a Dutch former Formula One driver, and his mother, Sophie Kumpen, a Belgian kart racer. After a period in Monaco, the family settled in Maaseik and then Bree, small towns in the Belgian province of Limburg, close to the Dutch border, a quiet region of farmland, canals and the River Meuse. His younger sister, Victoria, also raced karts. Max was driving a quad bike at two and a half, and at four and a half his father put him in a kart for the first time at a rental track in nearby Genk. Within a day, they had bought him a bigger one. From then on, his childhood revolved around the Genk circuit, where he trained two or three times a week after school and at weekends. His father ran everything: he took Max to school, prepared the chassis and engines in his workshop, timed every lap, and was famously tough, scolding his son when he made mistakes. His parents separated when he was young, and Max lived with his father. He began competing at seven, and in his teens dominated international karting, winning world and European titles. In 2014, at sixteen, he moved straight into single-seaters, and in 2015, at seventeen, he became the youngest driver ever to start a Formula One race. With Red Bull he went on to win four consecutive world championships from 2021. He chose to race under the Dutch flag of his father.”

Sources: the-race.com lalibre.be roundtable.io Wikipedia: Max Verstappen