Jenson Button has compared his new FIA WEC employer JOTA Sport to the Brawn GP outfit that guided him to the Formula 1 World Championship in 2009.
Button was announced as the third driver of JOTA’s #38 Porsche 963 Hypercar on Friday – with the 2024 FIA WEC season set to be his first full championship of competition since his unsuccessful title defence in the 2019 Super GT series.
The 2009 Formula 1 Champion took to Instagram to share his thoughts on the exciting announcement and likened the customer JOTA team to Ross Brawn’s eponymous phoenix Formula 1 team.
“It’s an out-and-out race team and that’s what I love about the team,” Button told his Instagram followers of JOTA.
“I really do think they can take it to the big teams, to the manufacturers.
“It kind of reminds me of a season back in 2009 which was pretty good.”
2009, of course, was the year of Brawn GP, the team born out of the ashes of Honda’s hasty exit from F1 at the end of 2008 amid an international financial crisis.
Team Principal Ross Brawn spearheaded efforts to get Brawn onto the grid and the team capitalised on a radically revised set of technical regulations via its innovative double diffuser concept to emerge as the strongest competitor at the start of the ’09 season, with Button winning six of the first seven races en route to a memorable title for both him and the team.
Brawn GP’s story is a remarkable piece of F1 history that is currently being revisited in a documentary mini-series fronted by Hollywood superstar Keanu Reeves over on Disney+.
Following the unlikely triumph in 2009. Brawn was bought by Mercedes and the Brackley-based team went on to win seven Drivers’ and eight Constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021.
JOTA, who led for a portion of this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans with its customer Porsche 963 entry, has a similarly impressive record of success as a privateer team.
As Button said in his video on Instagram, JOTA is the most successful privateer entry in the history of the FIA WEC series and at the centrepiece race at Le Mans.
“There’s a lot to do before the first race, a couple of tests,” added Button.
“It’s a competitive year, so I look forward to being ready for the first race in Qatar at the start of March.”
