Jenson Button (JOTA): “Motor racing should be fun”

Jenson Button, what are your feelings after the Prologue of the WEC here in Qatar?

I haven't done this circuit in a simulator before coming here, and it was obviously the first time for most of us. It's a difficult circuit, really. The tires wear little, but it's very nervous. This makes it very easy to suddenly lose the car when exiting or entering a corner, which makes things a bit more difficult when it comes to pushing the car aggressively. However, it's also a lot of fun, because you can drive the car in a way that you can't normally do on most types of circuits. So I really enjoyed it. We've all felt like we're driving a golf cart, seeing the changes in direction and everything that has to be done. In terms of performance, these few days have been good. The most important thing is that we did a lot of laps, 465 in total, I think between the two cars (491 in reality. Editor’s note). So the team has worked tirelessly, and it's probably more up to Sam (Hignett. Editor's note) to say this, but becoming a two-car team is a challenge at this level. You know, it's a very complicated car, all Hypercars are. The feedback has been very positive with everything we have put in place in terms of settings over the last few days, which is something I haven't seen often in motorsport. So, yeah, it's a really good team and fun to work with, which is one of the most important things for me at this point in my life. Car racing should be fun. This is not a job for me. It's about succeeding and having fun.

When you say it's about having fun for you, is riding in a private team, even though they have shown they can compete with the factory teams, and maybe not having Is the pressure associated with driving for a manufacturer part of it?

This team is racing to win, to be competitive and to get the upper hand, in a way, over the big teams, if you will, over the manufacturers. That's what I like. I've been under all the pressure possible in motorsport, so it's absolutely not a problem. It's just that I think we all have the same goals. We did quite a bit of team building, which wasn't really necessary because we all fit well into this team as drivers and we're having fun. Like I said, as a racing driver you always want to win. It doesn't matter whether you enjoy it or not. What matters is winning. That's the most important thing, but having fun is also essential.

As a customer team, how important is it to beat the official cars?

To win races you have to beat your sister car, so you shouldn't target just one team. It's a championship where there are a lot of very competitive teams and cars, and we've seen that in the last few days. We can't try to beat just one team. We are here to be competitive.

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