PIT + PADDOCK

Button back to full-time racing with Porsche

WEC Jenson Button will make a full-time return to racing next season for the first time since his title year in Super GT in 2018. The 2009 Formula 1 world champion’s deal to race a Porsche 963 LMDh for the Jota team in the World Endurance Championship has finally been announced.

The 43-year-old Briton has taken the final berth in British squad Hertz Team Jota’s expanded two-car Hypercar line-up alongside Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen. Confirmation of the deal

has come after comments about his desire to compete in the prototype arena in international sportscar racing, and prolonged speculation quickly confirmed by the team that he was in the frame for a seat.

As long ago as May, Button raised the prospect of competing full-time in either the WEC or the IMSA SportsCar Championship. He described the drive alongside Jimmie Johnson and Mike Rockenfeller in the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro LS1 Garage 56 entry as “a great way to get back to Le Mans”, a race he previously contested in SMP Racing’s

Formula E and DTM star Mortara will line up with Lambo

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BR Engineering-AER BR1 in 2018.

Button subsequently made his race debut in a current-generation prototype in October’s Petit Le Mans IMSA SportsCar finale at Road Atlanta, driving the JDCMiller Motorsports Porsche. It helped convince Jota that he was the right man for the job to lead its #38 car crew.

“He did a good job and it certainly helped,” said Jota team principal Sam Hignett. “It must have been an eye-opening situation for him to do Petit and to drive the car both for the first time. These cars are super-tricky, but he understands the technology from F1, so we shouldn’t be surprised that he did a good job.

“The pool of drivers who could lead that car was small. It needed to be someone with experience of the car, and it needed to be someone with experience of high-level racing. There just aren’t that many people who have got that.”

Button suggested that he has high aspirations for 2024 with Jota, which impressed after getting its hands on the first of its Porsches at the Spa WEC round in April, leading at Le Mans, and ending up as first Porsche home at the Bahrain season finale. “There is no better team than Hertz Team Jota to be taking on the big manufacturers in Hypercar,” he said. “It is a team that has achieved so much in its years, the most achieving privateer team in WEC and at Le Mans, the big one. It’s just

4 AUTOSPORT.COM 21-28 DECEMBER 2023