Button made his series debut in a Porsche 963 as the extra driver in JDC-Miller MotorSports’ line-up at Road Atlanta, and finished fifth alongside Mike Rockenfeller – his Garage 56 Le Mans team-mate – and youngster Tijmen van der Helm.
The 2009 F1 world champion says he has “options” to race in IMSA next season – both a full season or enduros only – or a World Endurance Championship campaign, potentially in Jota’s Porsche 963 programme which has also been linked to fellow ex-F1 stars Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica.
Speaking to NBC after his double stint in the season-closing race, Button said he enjoyed the GTP experience but was kept busy in the hybrid-assisted LMDh car by the bumper 54-car entry.
“Happy I got out in one piece!” he quipped. “No, it was good fun… Stressful, chaotic, hectic and pretty physical on the hands as well.
“The steering wheel suddenly got heavy. I'm not sure why that is. My first run, I had new tyres on and it felt great, I could race with people, I had a go at getting past Josef Newgarden [in the factory Penske-run 963] and then the second run was on old tyres. Wow, that was hard!
“You’ve got so many things on the steering wheel to change and adjust, with TC lat and TC straight ahead, and then there’s all the migration under braking and there’s so much, I was changing everything to try and look after one end of the car and then I’d start locking-up that end, so then I look after the other end. I was going around in circles with all the switches!
“The tyre deg was a bit bigger than I’d hoped but the first stint on the tyres I felt happy considering it was the first time I’d been in the car and I’d never done more than 10 laps.
“It was nice to race out there with a few people.”
Source: Autosport