Jenson Button will stay with the British Jota squad within the World Endurance Championship on its commencement to the manufacturing facility ranks with Cadillac subsequent season.
The 2009 Formulation 1 world champion will transfer over with Jota from Porsche to Cadillac to drive one in every of two V-Sequence LMDhs to be fielded by the crew within the Hypercar class.
A second full season within the WEC for 44-year-old Button was confirmed on Thursday when the total driver roster was introduced for the Cadillac Hertz Crew Jota entries.
Will Stevens and Norman Nato have joined Button in switching from Jota’s two-car squad of buyer Porsche 963 LMDhs.
Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn will proceed with Cadillac at Jota within the WEC after two years racing the Basic Motors model’s solo Hypercar entry run by Chip Ganassi Racing
Sebastien Bourdais additionally makes the transfer from Ganassi, with which he has been a full-season common within the IMSA SportsCar Championship since 2022 after calling time on his IndyCar profession.
Cadillac Racing driver line up
Picture by: Richard Prince
He’s switching sequence having raced alongside Bamber and Lynn within the Qatar and Bahrain WEC rounds at the start and finish of this yr’s marketing campaign.
It is going to be the primary full-time programme exterior of North America for the Frenchman since his season and a half in F1 with Toro Rosso in 2008-09.
Bourdais won’t stay with Cadillac in IMSA’s GTP class subsequent yr, however will keep within the sequence after signing a take care of Tower Motorsport to race within the LMP2 division.
Cadillac and Jota have but to disclose the driving force mixtures for its two WEC entries, which is able to retain the #12 and #38 race numbers from the Porsche programme.
Bamber will even be competing for Cadillac in IMSA subsequent yr with Motion Specific Racing, however it’s anticipated that the Jota programme will take priority on the conflict between the Spa and Laguna Seca races in Could and on the Le Mans 24 Hours ought to the American crew contest the WEC double-points spherical for a 3rd yr in succession.
Button was broadly anticipated to stick with Jota having revealed firstly of the season that he noticed his time in Hypercar as a two-year enterprise.
He had, nonetheless, refused to verify his plans and whether or not he would proceed racing forward of the announcement on Thursday.
Button mentioned: “I’m delighted to be persevering with my journey with Hertz Crew Jota as they kind their new partnership with such an iconic model as Cadillac.
“Racing with Jota this season has been such a privilege as they’re a crew steeped in success in endurance racing and an operation I’ve lengthy admired.
“These achievements and exhausting work have now led to this thrilling subsequent chapter seeing them companion with Cadillac, a marque which has already impressed with what it has achieved thus far in each WEC and IMSA.
#38 Hertz Crew Jota Porsche 963: Jenson Button, Philip Hanson, Oliver Rasmussen
Picture by: JEP / Motorsport Photos
“The motive force line-up is fairly spectacular: we convey our collective expertise of working with the Cadillac platform and the expertise of working with Jota collectively.
“We now have all of the substances for an awesome season forward.”
Jota director David Clark acknowledged: “Cadillac’s pedigree in motorsport speaks for itself, and with these six drivers we shall be in a powerful place to problem for race wins.”
Bourdais, 45, mentioned he was “grateful to be a part of this new journey”, including: “It is a recognized amount with the automobile and the GM folks, so it’s cool to have the ability to proceed there.”
Stevens, who took victory within the #12 Jota Porsche in final Could’s WEC spherical at Spa, is continuous a relationship that stretches again to 2016.
The Briton has been a fixture with the crew since successful the WEC P2 crown in 2022, saying: “I’ve made no secret of my intention to be with Jota for the lengthy haul and to do that with Cadillac makes it much more particular.”
Cadillac is upscaling its WEC assault this season in keeping with a brand new rule mandating two-car entries for producer groups competing in Hypercar.
Ganassi fielded just one automobile within the WEC in 2023 and 2024: its two-car IMSA assault of 2022 with the DPi-V.R Daytona Prototype worldwide was successfully break up in half firstly of the Hypercar period, with one automobile racing on the earth championship and one in North America.
It unilaterally introduced in March that its relationship with Cadillac would come to an finish on the conclusion of this yr’s WEC and IMSA campaigns.
Ganassi ran Bamber and Lynn as a duo within the six-hour WEC races this yr, however Jota at all times supposed to stay with three drivers on its swap to Cadillac.
Crew boss Sam Hignett has careworn the significance of racing with the identical line-up as at Le Mans in all WEC occasions.
Jota will shake down its V-Sequence.R chassis on the Anneau du Rhin circuit near the German border in northern France subsequent week.
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