Button: The Le Mans circuit is perfect for our car

Jenson Button is taking part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the second time and so far everything is going well for him and for his teammates Hendrick Motorsport.

Recall that they are conducting some kind of experiment and going to Le Mans in an American NASCAR class stock car specially modified for endurance racing. Crew No. 24 performs off the leaderboard in a special “innovative” category, but actually competes with LMGTE Am sports cars.

In some stages of the marathon, their Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 even led, sometimes it was in the top three, but now it has rolled back to the end of the top ten, but not because the car lacks speed, but because of minor technical problems. problems that had to be solved in boxes.

However, these were not the only difficulties Button, Mike Rockenfeller and Jimmie Johnson faced, but they successfully overcame them.

“When we were testing this car, there was no traffic on the track at all,” Jenson said on the Eurosport TV channel. – We saw other cars for the first time only here, in Le Mans. Handling traffic isn’t easy, as the car loses some downforce, but it’s still a lot of fun to drive.

When we go through Porsche corners at high speed, we have to put in a lot of effort. The car has an aggressive character but is simple and I would say it feels very “mechanical”. Driving is very simple and interesting, she forgives the rider a lot, and on such a track it is not bad.

Admittedly I had to spend some time adjusting to the heavy weight, but now I’m quite comfortable behind the wheel and this track suits our car perfectly.

The Camaro is very fast on the long straights, but handles fast corners very well and is very stable under the brakes. Mechanical grip is also more or less normal.

It was great to fight other GT cars, although I understand we are in our category. With the results of passing circles we have comparable or even better, only pit stops take longer. Still, our team did a great job because we had to take the NASCAR car and modify it to adapt it to endurance racing. This is all very impressive!”