In racing, every hundredth of a second matters. A race might last 20 minutes, 500 miles, or a full 24 hours—and still find the winner separated from their competition by an eye blink.
As a guest of Rolex during Monterey Car Week 2024, I chatted with two racing legends well versed in close victories: Jenson Button and Hurley Haywood. Both men are Rolex ambassadors, associated with the Swiss watchmaker in recognition of their immense contributions to motorsports.
Haywood counts five Rolex Daytona wristwatches in his collection, each awarded for an overall victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Button, a Formula 1 champion, hopes to earn his first podium Rolex at the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year.
Our conversations orbited the concept of time. Not just the seconds that make up a lap, but the years of practice and sacrifice, the thousands of hours of experience that separate a young driver from a seasoned pro. I asked each driver the same question: What was the longest minute in your racing career? Their answers were profound, encompassing the joy and agony that comes with competing at the pinnacle of motorsports.
When I posed this question to Haywood at this month’s Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, his answer came immediately.
"Trying to get out of a burning car, that was the longest minute of my life," he told me. "That was at Mosport."
Haywood was driving a Porsche 935 owned by Preston Henn at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It was 1983, a short time after Haywood’s friend and co-driver Peter Gregg had died by suicide. As Haywood told Motorsport Magazine, "When I broke my leg at Mosport [...] the race car was the only place that I could go and not think about the pain that I was in, because you were so focused on what you were doing…. Racing is a wonderful mask for things that are going on inside you."
Haywood is a Vietnam War veteran and the winningest American driver in endurance racing history. He’s of course won the Rolex 24 at Daytona five times, the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times, and the 12 Hours of Sebring twice. No doubt, the humble, gentlemanly driver has seen his fair share of harrowing moments. But when he describes that crash and its aftermath, you understand the terror of the moment:
"I broke my leg pretty badly," he told Motor1. "Getting out of the car was a real ordeal. I couldn’t get traction getting out. I looked down and I was looking at the sole of my foot."
Haywood’s left leg was in a cast for two years. Unable to operate the heavy clutch pedal in his Porsche race car, he joined Group 44 Racing, where he could drive a semi-automatic Jaguar prototype while his leg healed. Never one to slow down, Haywood soon switched to the Group 44 Audi Quattro, nabbing the 1988 Trans-Am driver’s championship in the process.
Talking about that crash more than 40 years later, Haywood brings a racer’s pragmatism to the conversation.
"The leg’s still there," he said, "and I still can walk pretty well."
Elsewhere at the Motorsports Reunion, held annually at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, I sat down with Jenson Button. Following a 17-year career in Formula 1, Button has applied himself to nearly every form of racing on earth, from Trophy Trucks to SuperGT. On break from the FIA World Endurance Championship, where he drives the No. 38 Porsche Hypercar of Hertz Team Jota, Button was competing for the first time at Laguna Seca, driving his 1952 Jaguar C-Type in the historic races.
We spoke after he’d driven some practice laps in the Jaguar, which was originally owned by six-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio. Button had never driven the famous California race track before, but with his vast experience, the Corkscrew was a non-issue.
"It’s fine," he said of Laguna’s blind downhill Turn 8. "It’s not Eau Rouge. It just drops down a lot."
I asked Button about the longest minute of his racing career:
"Brazil, 2009, last lap, when I won the world championship," he said. "You hear everything. You hear all the noises. I kept asking the team, is it okay, do I need to shift shorter revs, do I need to look after the engine? No, it’s all good. But still you worry about that. It’s a moment in time that could be life-changing, or not."
Button finished the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix in fifth place. He had won six out of the first seven races that season, but struggled in the latter half of the season. In a recent documentary about that fateful F1 season, Button spoke openly about the mental struggles and lack of self-confidence that nearly doomed him. So on that last lap of Interlagos, with his championship secured, it’s no wonder his mind was racing.
"It’s 15 years ago, but you still remember," he told Motor1. "You go through your whole career in one minute. The amazing memories of racing in go karts with my dad by my side the whole time, and then what you gave up as a kid, the highs and lows. Because you have so many lows in a racing career. You’re not always in a car that’s good enough."
Button currently races in WEC alongside Oliver Rasmussen, 23, and Phil Hanson, 25. He’s quick to acknowledge that his young colleagues work hard, and they learn quicker than he does at 44. But with age comes experience, particularly when it comes to the lows of a long racing career.
"If you ever find yourself there again, you can pull yourself out of it very quick," Button said. "You’re immediately there to fight back. Your head’s in the game, in the right place. In your youth you sometimes struggle with that, because you always want to prove yourself, every second of the race, always trying to prove yourself. Any negativity just destroys you mentally. Racing drivers are so insecure."
