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Former F1 Drivers’ Champion Jenson Button has a shot at racing immortality this weekend
The world’s biggest motorsport endurance race gets underway later today, as the 2024 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans gets underway.
And one of the drivers in the field has a shot at joining one of motorsport’s most exclusive clubs.
Jenson Button, the 2009 Formula 1 Drivers’ Champion, is back in the Le Mans field this season. A year ago Button made his Le Mans debut, driving in the “Garage 56” entry with Hendrick Motorsport that finished 39th.
But this year, Button is driving for Hertz Team Jota, which qualified 17th for the race, part of the triple crown of motorsport. And if Button were able to be part of a winning team at Le Mans, he would become just the sixth F1 champion in the history of motorsport to taste victory at Le Mans.
Mike Hawthorn was the first driver to win both a F1 Drivers’ Championship and Le Mans, but he tasted victory in the endurance race first, winning the 1955 installment with Jaguar. He went on to claim an F1 title three years later, in 1958 with Ferrari.
Next up was Phil Hill, who like Hawthorn climbed to the top of the endurance mountain first. Hill, along with Olivier Gendebien, captured victory at Le Mans for Ferrari in 1958, the first of three wins at Le Mans. Then in 1961 he and Gendebien again win at Le Mans for Ferrari, but Hill also won the F1 Drivers’ Championship for Ferrari.
The next driver to win both was Jochen Rindt, although his is one of the sadder tales in motorsport. Rindt was part of a team that won Le Mans in 1965, and then during the 1970 F1 season he established a commanding lead in the Drivers’ Championship standings while participating for Lotus-Ford.
However, during practice ahead of the 1970 Italian Grand Prix Rindt’s Lotus experienced a brake shaft failure, and he crashed heavily near the Parabolica corner, and tragically passed away as a result of his injuries. Despite his tragic death with four races remaining in the season, Rindt’s lead in the Drivers’ Championship was insurmountable, and he was posthumously awarded the F1 title.
Graham Hill is the only driver to have captured each leg of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, having won the F1 Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. His first F1 Drivers’ Championship came in 1962 with BRM, but he finally captured a win at Le Mans in his tenth and final start, winning in 1972 alongside Henri Pescarolo for Matra-Simca.
Hill remains the only driver to have won each leg of the Triple Crown of Motorsport.
The fifth and final member of this club? Fernando Alonso. He won back-to-back F1 titles in 2005 and 2006, and then pulled off a similar double in Le Mans, capturing wins in both 2018 and 2019 with Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Should Button taste victory this weekend, he would become the sixth member of that club.
And it is something he is absolutely aiming for.
“There is every chance we can fight for a win at Le Mans, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it,” said Button last year. “I’m not interested in just being on the grid after the career I’ve had.”
We will see if he joins that club over the next 36 hours.
