Fresh from a podium finish at the Rolex 24 Hours last month, Jenson Button is ready to return to a full-time race programme for the first time since 2019.
The 2009 Formula One World Champion’s first full season in the FIA World Endurance Championship gets formally underway this weekend with the Qatar Prologue at the Lusail International Circuit. It will be his second test as a member of HERTZ Team JOTA ahead of his maiden Hypercar campaign with the British Porsche customer.
This year he will share the #38 963 with Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen for JOTA’s first season as a two-car Hypercar team. It’s a programme which he has been looking forward to since he entered talks to drive summer.
“I know a lot of the guys from JOTA, going years back,” he explains when asked about the link between him and the team. “I know Sam (Hignett) and David Clarke well, as well as Singer and Tom Wagner who is involved in team financing.
“At Le Mans last year we were talking about it. It was going to happen, it was just about putting pen to paper.”
Ahead of the Prologue, Button has enjoyed valuable seat time in an LMDh over the past four months. He competed at Petit Le Mans in JDC-Miller’s 963 in October, before testing with JOTA in Bahrain just days before his one-off IMSA GTP run with Acura team WTRAndretti last month at the Rolex 24.
Interestingly, his IMSA drive meant he became one of only a handful of drivers to have sampled two different LMDh cars. Learning the driver’s manual for the Acura and Porsche at the same time, he admitted, was not an easy task…
“Driving both cars messes with your head a bit, but driving a prototype overall is always going to be beneficial.
“I feel really comfortable (with JOTA), they’re really professional. They’re a pure out-and-out race team, which is what I love, they’re not out to sell cars, they just want to win purely to win.”
Button’s newfound enthusiasm for prototype racing was clear for all to see throughout Rolex race week. He enjoys the challenge of racing LMDh cars, which he says are more complex in some ways than anything he drove in Formula One.
“The big thing is learning the systems in the car. That’s what takes time. When they come on the radio and say ‘Multi this, multi that’, there’s just so much,” he explains.
“There’s a hundred more things to do in this car than a Formula One car. It’s so technically advanced it’s nuts! In Formula One you do a lot of this behind the scenes, but we can do it in the car. There’s so much to adjust. So it’s about understanding the systems where they are on the steering wheel and what effect they can have on the car.”
With a Daytona 24 start under his belt, he has no more major races on his bucket list to tick off. And with no desire to compete in IMSA full time or return to Super GT after what he describes as a “lonely period” in his career due to the language barrier and travel, the FIA WEC is his full focus.
He is no stranger to the championship. The last time he competed in the top class of the FIA WEC was back in 2018, when he took on a partial-season campaign in LMP1 with SMP Racing. He was, lest we forget, a key part of the Hendrick Motorsport NASCAR Garage 56 effort at Le Mans last June too.
But rather than see those experiences as a ‘tick’ and wind down his driving commitments, now, he feels, is the right time to commit to a full programme.
“From 2019 to now I’ve had two kids, but they’re a little older now. It makes it easier now when I’m travelling,” he explains.
“During COVID we all felt like we lost years, and I would have been racing in something full time I think but it didn’t work out.
“So I did NASCAR, Le Mans, Petit Le Mans. I enjoyed it, but jumping in and out, you don’t get the best out of yourself. I want to dig deep into the details and technology.
“I’m properly excited about competing in a full season.”
And crucially, this is just the start. He hopes to remain in Hypercar beyond 2024.
“I don’t see this as a one-year deal. I don’t want to be jumping around now,” Button concludes.
“I am 44, I won’t be racing for many more years. I’m fully on it in wanting to achieve over the next couple of years. I don’t want to be switching championships. I think I’ll be in the WEC for the next couple of years.”
Featured image courtesy of IMSA
