Why Button didn’t carry on with WEC after 2018 outings

Jota Cadillac driver Jenson Button has explained why he didn’t continue in the World Endurance Championship back when he first raced there.

Button entered his maiden endurance race at the 2018 Le Mans 24 Hours, when an electronics issue struck his SMP Racing-entered BR Engineering BR1 early in the race. Button and team-mates Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov spent most of the contest some 50 laps down.

The 2009 Formula 1 world champion went on to race in the next three WEC rounds, peaking with a podium in Shanghai before bowing out until 2024, though he’s been back at Le Mans since 2023 when he was part of the Garage 56 NASCAR roster.

“When I raced in LMP1 with SMP, the aim was – I thought the next couple of years were going to be big in LMP1, I thought we were going to have more manufacturers, more teams, so I wanted to get a bit of experience. That was the aim, and then to race in the future years with a manufacturer,” said Button, now sharing a Cadillac V-Series.R with Earl Bamber and Sebastien Bourdais.

“But the sport was in a place where there weren’t really any manufacturers coming into the sport at that time. It took the new regulations to attract manufacturers, so I did that year and I was like, ‘well, I’ve done that now, it’s not really happening for me’ – so it was a matter of waiting.”

Back in 2018, Toyota was the only major manufacturer committed to the LMP1 class following the exits of Audi and Porsche. Independent outfits still bumped the class up to 10 cars, but the writing was on the wall with a clear lack of interest from OEMs; just eight cars were entered for the 2019 edition of Le Mans, then a meagre five in 2020.

Button still had fun at the time. He continued: “Those were the days where the cars were super quick, so much downforce. Surprisingly though, this car [the LMDh Cadillac V-Series.R] in high speed feels like it’s as quick as an LMP1 car.”

One of the most peculiar experiences the British veteran had at Circuit de la Sarthe came in 2023, driving a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 with Hendrick Motorsports.

“I had the chance to race the NASCAR Cup car here, which initially was like, ‘that’s just nuts, why would I want to drive a NASCAR around the clock?’. And then I got involved with the testing programme, it was so much fun to drive and the atmosphere was great – and also how serious they took it, how professional Hendrick were,” he recalled.

“And to come here with a Garage 56 and be as competitive as it was, and nobody thought it would be anywhere near the GTEs… it was a lot of fun.

“I remember the drivers’ briefing, they said that when the NASCAR went through the Porsche curves they were going to put white flags out, because they thought it would be so slow. And we ended up outqualifying all the GTE cars, so it was a nice, fun car to drive, and a good experience for the whole team.

“But obviously I wanted to come back in a car that could fight for a win in Hypercars, so that’s why the Jota story started with the Porsche 963.

“Then with it becoming a manufacturer team this year, I jumped at the chance to be racing here with the Cadillac.”