{"id":56470,"date":"2020-10-14T06:53:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T06:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wordpress_X\/index.php\/2020\/10\/14\/f1-world-champion-button-set-for-british-gt-debut-at-silverstone-500\/"},"modified":"2020-10-14T06:53:11","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T06:53:11","slug":"f1-world-champion-button-set-for-british-gt-debut-at-silverstone-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/f1-world-champion-button-set-for-british-gt-debut-at-silverstone-500\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 world champion Button set for British GT debut at Silverstone 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jenson Button will make his GT3 debut during the British GT Championship\u2019s blue riband Silverstone 500 race on November 7\/8.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 2009 FIA Formula 1 World Champion joins Jenson Team Rocket RJN co-owner Chris Buncombe behind the wheel of a McLaren 720S GT3 for the three-hour season finale.<\/span><\/p>\n

The race \u2013 which will decide this year\u2019s British GT Drivers\u2019 and Teams\u2019 titles \u2013 represents several firsts for the Sky Sports F1 pundit who also claimed Japan\u2019s prestigious Super GT crown in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

Button has never raced for his own GT team, which he co-founded with life-long friend and business partner Buncombe in 2019, nor driven a GT3 car competitively. It will also be his first competitive appearance at the British Grand Prix venue since his final Formula 1 outing there in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Covid-19 restrictions will prevent spectators from attending the event. However, British GT and SRO Motorsports Group\u2019s free and unrestricted livestreaming options ensure fans needn\u2019t miss a moment of Button\u2019s debut or the championship showdown, which falls outside of a Formula 1 weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jenson<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be my first taste of a GT3 car but I\u2019m really looking forward it,\u201d said Button, whose entry is supported by Sky and Intelligent Money Private Clients. \u201cIt will be lovely to join our team and lining-up in the McLaren 720S with my best buddy Chris Buncombe. It\u2019s great to come back and race on UK soil again \u2013 a big thank you to our partners that have made this possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that this final round of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship will be without the fans but I hope they will tune in to follow our progress!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Buncombe, meanwhile, makes his first British GT start since the final round at Donington Park in 2018. He\u2019s also a former Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup class champion but, like Button, has never raced the McLaren competitively. Both will sample the car for the first time during a private test session at Silverstone later this month.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJenson and I have spoken for a while about sharing a car together on track \u2013 we have done a number of off-road races together driving a spec Trophy Truck in the US but never driven together in a GT race,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will be great to return to Silverstone and I\u2019m hugely looking forward to trying the McLaren 720S GT3. Thank you to everyone who has helped make this possible, it\u2019s a fantastic way to end the 2020 season.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jenson Team Rocket RJN\u2019s new Pro\/Am pairing joins the squad\u2019s existing Silver Cup duo of Michael O\u2019Brien and World\u2019s Fastest Gamer James Baldwin who head to Silverstone as one of four GT3 title contenders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Team principal Bob Neville added: \u201cWe are very pleased to be able to run a second car at this final race of the year and it\u2019s brilliant to have a former world champion in Jenson with an endurance champion in Chris behind the wheel, both of whom are my partners in the team.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“We are also heading into this race with an outside chance of [winning] the British GT Championship with our Silver Cup pairing of Michael O\u2019Brien and the World\u2019s Fastest Gamer, James Baldwin, who will hopefully benefit from having such experienced team-mates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Further race-by-race entries for British GT\u2019s three-hour #SilverstoneShowdown, which is expected to attract the largest grid of the season, will be announced in the coming weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch the season finale live on the championship\u2019s Facebook page and website, as well as SRO\u2019s GT World Youtube channel, from 12:45 GMT on Sunday 8 November.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did you know?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Button scored his last victory at Silverstone while racing on British GT\u2019s support bill in October 1999, one year before his Formula 1 graduation with Williams. The then-19-year-old also set fastest lap en route to a third British F3 win of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jenson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jenson Button will make his GT3 debut during the British GT Championship\u2019s blue riband Silverstone 500 race on November 7\/8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-56470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-gt"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}