Button leans into another career reset with full-time Porsche Hypercar ride

Jenson Button officially launched his first full-time FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar campaign with Hertz Team JOTA at last weekend's Prologue pre-season test in Qatar, which and comes off the back of the 2009 Formula 1 world champion's podium finish at the Rolex 24 At Daytona with WTRAndretti. It is the Briton's first full-time race program since his 2019 Super GT GT500 title defense with Team Kunimitsu. Button will share the No. 38 JOTA 963 with Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen for the British team's first season as a two-car Hypercar team.

The JOTA team is highly motivated heading into the new season, which officially gets underway with the Qatar 1812Km on March 2. After leading multiple races last year (including the Le Mans 24 Hours) and taking the fight to the Penske-run factory Porsches on a consistent basis, it sees no reason it cannot aim for more than just the FIA World Cup for (private) Hypercar Teams title.

More Le Mans/WEC

Vanthoor addresses future with Porsche

McLaren names its forthcoming Hypercar the MCL-HY

With Alpine’s impending Hypercar exit, what’s next for Signatech?

Button has been looking forward to getting going since it became clear a full-time drive was coming together.

"I know a lot of the guys from JOTA, going years back," he notes. "I know Sam (Hignett, team principal) and David Clarke (team director) well, as well as Tom Wagner (a Hertz board member), 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 gained valuable seat time in an LMDh over the past four months. He competed at Petit Le Mans in JDC-Miller's 963 last 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 raced two different LMDh cars since the formula made its debut at the 2023 Rolex 24. Learning the driver's manual for the Acura and Porsche back to back, 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," he says. "And 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 race week at Daytona. He enjoys the challenge of racing LMDh cars. In some ways, he explained, they are more complex for a driver than anything he drove in Formula 1.

“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 says. “There’s a hundred more things to do in this car than a Formula 1 car. It’s so technically advanced it’s nuts! In Formula 1 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, Button 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 has his full attention.

He is no stranger to the series, having previously competed in the top class back in 2018 as part of a partial-season campaign in LMP1 with SMP Racing. He was also a key part of the Hendrick Motorsport NASCAR Garage 56 effort at Le Mans last June.

Interestingly, he tells RACER that the Garage 56 program has changed the way many fans see and interact with him.

“It’s funny, half the fans that ask for a picture or a photo, have one of me in a NASCAR now," he said. "Half of the time it’s F1 pictures, but the other half it’s a NASCAR. It’s cool. The NASCAR stuff, they might have noticed me in the couple of races I did [ED: COTA, Chicago and the IMS road course]. But it’s the Garage 56 stuff (people know him for) because we were going as part of NASCAR to race against the world.”

Rather than see these recent FIA WEC, IMSA, NASCAR and Le Mans experiences as a another notch on the belt and a wind-down his driving commitments, he feels energised and ready for more.

"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. I don't see this as a one-year deal. I don’t want to be jumping around now.

“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 doing WEC for the next couple of years.”