2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button will be joining former teammate Fernando Alonso on the World Endurance Championship grid at Le Mans. The Englishman has penned a deal to race the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship with the SMP Racing team.
Button’s new contract sees him race in the LMP1 category at Le Mans. In other words, he is a direct competitor of former McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard will be driving for Toyota in WEC this year.
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“As you can imagine, it’s always been a dream of mine to race at Le Mans,” Button said. “I think it’s every driver’s dream to take part and hopefully go on to clinch that win at Le Mans, and I’m definitely no different.”
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Jenson Button
Button’s teammates for the iconic endurance race will be former F1 driver Vitaly Petrov and IndyCar driver Mikhail Aleshin. The Briton is confident that the Russian team has a chance of victory at the famous 24-hour race.
Button said “I think with those two and the experience we all have from different types of racing and the team’s experience in endurance racing, all different categories, we go to Le Mans to fight for the win. Of course, every driver aims to win every race they go in for, but I think we really do have a good chance of being competitive at Le Mans.
“I think for most of us it is survival and then you see where you are at the end of the 24 Hours, and hopefully we are fighting for that victory.”
This weekend, Alonso and the rest of the current F1 grid are revving up for the Azerbaijan GP. Button in the meantime, is racing in the Japanese Super GT series with Honda. This year, McLaren have finally begun a redemption arc and have been performing much better than when they were with Honda.
