Jenson Button cuts an enormously relaxed figure, the amiable former Formula One world champion finding himself in a happy place as he prepares to bid for glory in the greatest sportscar race of them all, the Le Mans 24 Hours.
It is 15 years since Button won his F1 title with Brawn in 2009 and the 44-year-old effectively retired from the sport in 2016. At Le Mans this weekend for the 92nd running of the Grand Prix of Endurance, Button is very much enjoying a new career, indeed as he puts it, a new life.
“Formula One feels like yesterday but it also feels like forever ago, a different life,” he says with a smile. “Where I am in my life now is very different, I am a grown-up now, I’ve got kids.
“I look at motorsport in a different way. I race for fun now, I race because I enjoy it, not because it is a job as such, it’s because I want to go racing.”
Time has passed since his retirement from F1 and Button has savoured it, allowing himself free rein to try any discipline that takes his fancy. Super GT in Japan, where he won the title, Nascar, off-road trucks, rally-cross and of course sportscars. All of which has been balm to the soul and for the family.
“It’s been a fun process and journey over the last few years,” he says. “I’m so happy to be racing again. This is what I love and the important thing is my wife knows I need racing in my life and I am a better person for it.”
Button is among a stellar cast of drivers at the Vingt-Quatre this weekend including 17 other former F1 competitors and the nine-time motorbike world champion Valentino Rossi, driving a BMW for the WRT team in the LMGT3 class as part of his burgeoning four-wheel career. The 45-year-old Italian is taking part in the full World Endurance Championship (WEC) season, of which “the 24” is one round, and has proved to be an enormous draw at Le Mans, already attracting huge crowds at the iconic 8.467-mile Circuit de la Sarthe.
The race is without doubt special, a unique challenge and experience which attracts Button, Rossi, countless other drivers and 325,000 fans every year.
Button is driving the British Jota team’s Porsche 963 in the top Hypercar category, sharing the No 38 car with fellow Briton Phil Hanson, an LMP2 class-winner at Le Mans in 2020 and Denmark’s Oliver Rasmussen in an enormously impressive field that promises to make an intense competition.
The storied race has a magnificent history and is now enjoying popularity such as it has not seen for decades, perhaps to rival that of the mighty Group C cars of the 1980s when sportscar racing was considered a genuine rival to F1.
“I knew it was a special race, I used to watch it every year when I was racing in F1,” says Button. “The track, the layout, the atmosphere, the festival vibe, the competition and the teamwork that goes into it.
“People spend so much time here, they pitch a tent, have a caravan, have barbecues. You go through the Porsche curves at 11pm, you can smell the barbecues, it’s really cool.”
The fans’ enthusiasm remains the same then but the racing has fundamentally changed for the meeting where 62 cars will take part with 186 drivers in three categories, Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3.
This year there are 23 entries in the Hypercar category with no fewer than nine constructors. Last year’s winners Ferrari will take on Le Mans’ most successful marque in Porsche, who have won the endurance classic 19 times and have three works entries alongside two more from Button’s privateer Jota team. Then there are Toyota, winners of five of the previous six meetings, Cadillac, Alpine, BMW, Lamborghini and Peugeot, alongside the privateer outfit Isotta Fraschini Racing.
It is a formidable field, the fight for the win likely to be a battle between Ferrari, Porsche and Toyota but at this stage is too close to call with expectations high that the other teams will also feature in the mix in at the front.
Nowadays the concept of easing a car to ensure a finish is also long gone such is the intensity of the competition.
“You have 23 cars on the Hypercar grid, most of whom could compete for a victory,” says Button. “Le Mans in the past might have been: look after your car, get to the finish. Now because they are so reliable one team is going to push 100% the whole way through and they will make it. That means everyone has to give 100% every single lap. It’s a 24 hour sprint.”
Button dearly hopes to be in that fight come the flag at 3pm BST on Sunday and is in good shape to do so. A long weekend still lies ahead of course but victory at La Sarthe would taste as sweet as any of his F1 triumphs.
“When you are racing the best drivers in the world and you come out on top it is awesome,” he says. “Le Mans is up there with the best of them, the most exciting thing about winning is you would celebrate with two teammates and the whole team who have been through so much for those 24 hours, the emotions an unbelievable high.”
