Former Formula 1 driver Jenson Button has confirmed that he will be participating in the 2018/19 World Endurance Championship (WEC) Super Season and includes two 240 Hours of Le Mans races. The former F1 world champion will be driving for SMP Racing in the series, and will be directly competing with F1 driver Fernando Alonso, who was also confirmed to join the series earlier this year with Toyota. The former McLaren teammates will be competing in the LMP1 category at Le Mans. Button has been confirmed to participate in all rounds of the championhip, barring the 6 Hours of Spa.
"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." The former McLaren driver retired from F1 at the end of the 2016 season, and returned for a single race in 2017 for the Monaco GP.
Button will make his WEC debut in the French endurance classic in one of SMP's two AER-powered, Dallara-built BR1s, partnering with former F1 driver Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin. The first Le Mans race is scheduled in June this year. Meanwhile, the driver will continue to honour his commitment in the Super GT Series in Japan, which he joined last season. The second round of the Super GT series clashes with the 6 Hours of Spa, and hence, he will not be participating in the latter event.
This, however, won't be Button's first outing in endurance racing. The ex-F1 driver previously competed in the Spa 24 Hours in 1999.
"We go to Le Mans to fight for the win. I think that we really do have a good chance of being competitive at Le Mans," he added.
With a bunch of major factory teams pulling out of Le Mans this year, the fight between Alonso and Button during endurance racing should certainly be an interesting one. Meanwhile, this year has been by far, McLaren and Alonso's best in recent times, with the duo bringing in points in ever race of 2018. The F1 bandwagon is currently in Azerbaijan for the Baku GP scheduled for this weekend.
