Button rules out one-off Le Mans return as WEC career nears end

Jenson Button has no ambitions to return to the Le Mans 24 Hours on a one-off basis after he steps back from the World Endurance Championship at the end of 2025.

The 2009 Formula 1 world champion explained that the complexities involved in driving a WEC Hypercar class entry mean he has no interest in a seat for Le Mans only in the future. 

“If you want to race in endurance you have got to be in it the whole time,” said Button, who joined the Hypercar field last year in one of Jota’s customer Porsches and segued into its factory programme with Cadillac for 2025. 

“You need to have learnt what is happening with the car, the systems. Every time I get in the car there is something different and new learning again. 

“When you jump in when you are 44 years of age, it definitely takes you longer than when you are in your 20s.”

Button stressed in July that he was not retiring from the cockpit when he confirmed his departure from Jota at the end of his two-year contract, saying that he expected to be “racing something” in 2026 although not through a full campaign. 

He has now clarified his position, stressing that he will not be “racing professionally” and only be “racing for fun” in the future. 

Button explained that his focus from now on will be historic racing. 

“I love historics for some reason; it’s my age obviously,” he said. 

Button has a growing fleet of historic racing cars: for this season he has added a Jaguar E-type to the C-type, once five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio’s road car, and the Alfa Romeo GT Junior he already owned. 

He raced both Jaguars at this month’s Goodwood Revival, taking a first victory at the event in RAC TT Celebration, sharing the C-type with Alex Buncombe.  

Button suggested that a return to the NASCAR Cup series, in which he contested one road course and one street course event with the Rick Ware Racing Ford team in 2023, is not out of the question. 

“NASCAR is very different [to Hypercar], because it is very mechanical,” he explained. 

“I could probably do that because I could jump in and feel what the car is doing: you don’t have all the systems, so it a lot easier.”