Button: ‘No excuses’ this weekend
Jenson Button is in bullish mood ahead of this weekend’s 6 Hours of Fuji (13-15 September), confidently stating that Hertz Team JOTA has ‘no excuses’ not to be in the mix for the podium in the headlining Hypercar class
The #38 car – piloted by Button, fellow Brit Philip Hanson and Denmark’s Oliver Rasmussen – has shown flashes of pace this season but has been held back by incidents and ill-fortune, with two retirements from the first three races and a best finish to-date of seventh position in São Paulo two months ago. The sister #12 entry, meanwhile, scooped the runner-up spoils in the Qatar curtain-raiser and subsequently triumphed at Spa-Francorchamps, and currently leads the Hypercar World Cup standings.
Last year, the British outfit achieved its best result of the campaign with fourth place at Fuji, and Button himself has always had a close affinity with Japan and a large fanbase in the country, winning the grand prix at Suzuka in 2011 and contesting the Super GT Series from 2017 to 2019. He additionally finished fourth in the 2018 6 Hours of Fuji with SMP Racing.
The 2009 F1 World Champion – coming to the end of his first full campaign in the FIA World Endurance Championship – is hopeful of matching that result this weekend, if not better...
“I love racing in Japan and it’s awesome to be back,” Button enthused. “It’s been five years since I last raced here. The support for the sport is massive and it’s lovely to see the passion for it from the fans.
“Last year’s result and performance shows our car works well at Fuji. It’s a very smooth track, which is a positive so we have no excuses. I think on our side of the garage, the pace has been there, and while we’ve been unlucky, there’s definitely an opportunity to fight for a podium in the next two races.
“This is a very special category. I don’t think there are many categories around the world where you have so many different manufacturers and so many different teams that have the possibility to win races. It obviously depends on the track and whether you get it all together, but as we saw at COTA, not many people get a whole race together. It’s very difficult in this sport, with multi-class racing.
“There were lots of little mistakes made by different people and I think if you can maximise a weekend, you have a really good chance of scoring big points, even if you’re not the quickest car on the track.”
