Button: Cadillac LMDh is “A Little Bit More My Style”

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Jenson Button says he ‘feels very at home already’ aboard the Cadillac V-Series.R, explaining that the Dallara-chassised LMDh is “probably a little bit more my style” compared to the two current top-class prototypes he drove previously.

The 2009 Formula 1 world champion remained with Hertz Team JOTA as the team switched from running customer Porsche 963s to a pair of factory-backed Cadillac V-Series.Rs in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The No. 38 car, which Button shared with Earl Bamber and Sebastien Bourdais finished 16th in the season-opening Qatar 1812km after their competitive run was curtailed early on when JOTA’s pair of Cadillacs collided while running 1-2 under an early safety car.

After Qatar, Button has now completed races in three different LMDh cars.

He made his LMDh debut at the 2023 Motul Petit Le Mans, piloting JDC-Miller Motorsports’ privateer Porsche before joining Wayne Taylor Racing at the 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona, finishing third overall in an Acura ARX-06 he shared with Louis Deletraz, Jordan Taylor and Colton Herta.

Subsequently, he completed a full WEC campaign alongside Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen in JOTA’s No. 38 Porsche.

By his own admission, Button says he’s “not spent that much time in any of them” when comparing LMDh machinery, but spoke positively about the Cadillac.

“This car feels very natural to drive,” Button told Sportscar365.

“A little bit different in terms of how you extract pace from the Porsche. But this I would say is probably a little bit more my style. 

“With the experience we have with the team from my teammates, that’s really helped me get to grips with what the car likes, what the car doesn’t like.

“It’s been really nice [with] Seb and Earl. After my runs I’ve come in and talked to them and they’re like, ‘Well, the car doesn’t like to do this. Maybe you need to change your style a little bit here and that.’

“So it’s helped a lot. I feel very at home already.”

Button says the experience of his two co-drivers, who have a combined 42 race starts at the wheel of the Dallara-chassised LMDh car, is a very valuable tool as he attempts to climb the ‘big learning curve’ ahead of him.

“I think in terms of the setup work that we do with this car, in the direction we’re taking it, it’s definitely something I like,” said Button.

“It’s still a big learning curve for the team to work with the new car. But as I said, we have a lot of experience with my teammates, which definitely helps.

“They’re giving a lot of feedback on what worked in the past and what didn’t. But obviously the team want to do it for themselves to have a good understanding of what this car is going to achieve.

“I think for me, the biggest thing was when I started driving in LMDh was the systems.

“It’s so complicated and getting used to that, the steering wheel itself, the amount of switches that you have, the amount of things you can change and it’s on the fly so it’s when you’re driving.

“The setup work out of the car is one thing but the amount of stuff you can change in the car when you’re driving is extreme and that takes a long time to get used to.

“Then you go and change the manufacturer and you’ve got to learn it all again because it’s all different. So that takes a while but definitely it took me a few races last year to get to grips with that.”

Button further added that he has noticed a change in possibilities now that he is part of a factory-backed program with Cadillac as opposed to last year’s Porsche campaign, where running as a customer team came with certain limitations.

“It’s always going to be [like that],” he said.

“Understandably with Penske, they’re the drivers that decide how things are whether it’s the layout of the steering wheel or what what does what. With us now, we have a say in it, which makes a big difference to us as drivers.

“Obviously because we’re a works team with Cadillac now, it’s a lot more open more on what we can actually change.

“It was always going to be a lot more closed down with being a privateer team, whereas now we can change whatever we want, which is great and it happens very quickly as well.”