Dutch police have dubbed a four-year-old boy who attempted to take his mother’s car for a drive as the ‘new Max Verstappen’ after picking up the youngster in his pyjamas in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The boy was spotted wandering around barefoot by passersby who alerted the authorities, Utrecht police said on their Instagram account.

The boy was taken to the Overvecht police station and given a mug of hot chocolate and a teddy bear, while police tried to track down his parents.

The plotted thickened shortly afterwards when a police patrol called in to report that a car had been abandoned nearby, and that it appeared to have hit two other parked cars. The car turned out to belong to the boy’s mother.

‘She said her son is “very enterprising”, the police said. ‘She spoke to him on the phone and we saw him act out a collision and make a gesture as if he was steering with his hands.’

The police took the boy to meet his parents at the car, where he proceeded to show them how to put the key in the ignition, start the car, use the clutch and the accelerator.

The police have now concluded that the child woke up early when his dad went to work and sneaked out to go for a drive.

The police have warned parents with similarly enterprising children to hide the car keys. ‘Luckily this mini racing driver’s adventure ended quietly,’ they said.