Jensen Button will drive a Jaguar XJR-9 in the Group C race at the 2018 Le Mans Classic, to be held 6-8 July at the 38-turn, 8.469-mile Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. The 2009 Formula 1 World Champion has never taken part in the Le Mans 24 Hours or Le Mans Classic.
Button has never hidden his desire to participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans one day. In the interim, the English driver will discover the 2018 Le Mans Classic in the Group C race, a Saturday morning curtain-raiser to the main event. Button raced in Formula 1 from 2000 to 2016 starting 305 grands prix of which he won 15 as well as the world championship title in 2009 at the wheel of a Brawn GP. After a final one-off appearance in the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix replacing Fernando Alonso, the 37-year-old Englishman now seems to be attracted by endurance and historic car racing.
At the 2018 Le Mans Classic Jensen Button will be at the wheel of a Jaguar XJR-9, a car that in 1988 marked the return of the English make to the winner’s circle in the Le Mans 24 Hours, 31 years after the D-Type’s last victory. In that era with no chicanes this sports prototype flirted with the 400-km/h barrier on Les Hunaudières.
[Source: Le Mans Classic; photo: Julien Mahiels]
