Introducing: Max Cotton

Drifted is proud to shine the spotlight on Max Cotton, one of the UK’s most exciting, talented and youngest drifters.

A little background on Max

Max Cotton is 13 years old and lives at home with his parents and two sisters in Sheffield.

At the age of 9, Max gained his MSA Karting licence and started to enter competitions around the UK with some success. Max’s recalls his favourite day karting

“I was on the start line ready to go out for a practice run when it started to rain, everyone had slick tyres on, so they all decided to go and change tyres. I asked my Dad if I could go out on slicks and he agreed, It was awesome!”

“The back of the kart was out around every corner. I had never had so much fun on four wheels and I knew then that I wanted to do drifting when I was older. That night I started to watch drifting videos on YouTube, people like Ken Block and James Deane.”

How Max got into drifting

Max and his dad decided to pursue the drifting route and contacted ProDift Academy in Birmingham.

Max had never driven a car before but was drifting an MX-5 within minutes of getting into the driving seat.

Max continues to train with Prodrift Academy and finds that training invaluable.

“From the moment, Max Cotton got into one of our training cars it was clear that he had an incredible talent, with support from his family Max has progressed through our training levels very quickly to become one of the most talented drivers we have ever trained.”

“The Academy believes that Max has the potential to develop a successful career in professional drifting and win competitions around the globe. Max’s dream is to win formula drift in the USA and D1GP in Japan, Prodrift Academy believes that Max does have the skills to achieve his goal with the right coaching and dedication.”

Tom Hutchison (UK Operations Manager, Prodrift Academy)

How did Max fare in 2018?

In January 2018 Max got has his own BMW E30 drift car, he practised at Norfolk Arena with support from Malx and the Norfolk Arena Drift Team.

In March 2018 Max visited a very wet Driftland in Scotland and became the youngest driver to obtain a Driftland licence.

In April Max got his first taste of high speed drifting when he attended a Prodrift day at Teeside Autodrome where he received training from Martin Richard who is one of the UK’s top professional drifters, Martin is also considered to be the UK’s top drivers in Europe and is a full works team driver for Driftworks.

With Martins expert tuition and support from Yohann Quaziz (Prodrift Senior Instructor), Max was soon linking the track on the full BDC line, Max loves entering the first corner at over 80mph. and practices most days on his simulator and most weekends in his car.

Max’s 2019 so far..

In March 2019 Max becomes the youngest driver in history to enter the National DriftCup which is the first step towards professional drifting.

Max started a YouTube Channel and posts regular Vlogs, Max is hoping that the channel will eventually raise funds to help support his journey to Formula DRIFT.

You can also follow Max on Instagram @itsmaxcotton and Facebook maxcottondrift.

Photo credits to Harry Adair Photography.

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