Jenson Button could be about to become just the sixth F1 world champion to win the most prestigious endurance race – the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 2009 champion will make his third start in the famed twice-around-the-clock race and is expected to be an outright contender.
Fernando Alonso was the most recent F1 champion (2005, 2006) to win at Le Mans in 2018 and 2019 with Toyota.
Stan Sport is the only place to watch the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship. All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand
Before him, two-time F1 champion Graham Hill backed up his world drivers' championship titles in 1962 and 1968 with victory at Le Mans in 1972.
Hill is the only driver to win motorsport's triple crown – the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the Indianapolis 500.
Jochen Rindt won Le Mans first in 1965 and then the F1 title posthumously in 1970.
Phil Hill (unrelated to Graham) won the F1 title in 1961 and Le Mans on three occasions in 1958, 1961, and 1962.
The first to do the double was Mike Hawthorn, who also won Le Mans first in 1955 and then the F1 world championship in 1958.
"It's such a special place to be and I love this race, it's great," Button told Sportscar 365.
"I would love to stand on top of the podium here. That's the aim this year. We can do it."
Button will join Denmark's Oliver Rasmussen and Great Britain's Philip Hanson in a Team Jota-run Porsche 963.
The team is riding high after stablemates Callum Ilott and Will Stevens in the sister No.12 entry won the 6 Hours of Spa.
Still, they come in as underdogs. Team Jota are what's called a privateer.
Privateers buy cars from the manufacturers and run them independently.
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The likes of Porsche and Ferrari sell their cars to customers who then race them.
Manufacturers have their own "factory" teams which they run themselves and are generally considered a better chance of winning with intimate knowledge of the cars and resources.
"I think you've seen for most of the year, privateers have been very quick in WEC," said Button.
"For the team to win at Spa was massive. You look at the Proton, that was competitive in the race as well. AF Corse was also quick at the first race of the year.
"Privateers are able to make these cars competitive and the reason is because a team like Jota is a full-on racing team.
"This team has been around for a vey, very long time. Very competitive in everything it races. When the manufacturers come and go, this team will still be standing."
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Button and his co-drivers have had a wretched run in the FIA World Endurance Championship to date.
The Briton is optimistic they've got their bad luck out of the way as the most important race of the year looms.
"We've had a tough year," said Button.
"The pace has been pretty good. First race, we were on for a fifth when we had a failure.
"Second race we had a windscreen wiper fail when it was raining, which made it quite difficult.
"Then the last race we obviously had a crash. It's not been the best but we're getting rid of all that bad luck so that it can all go smoothly this week."
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How to watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans
Every session of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.
Le Mans Stan Sport schedule (AEST)
Wednesday – Free Practice 1 – 9.45pm
Thursday – Qualifying – 2.45am
Thursday – Free Practice 2 – 5.45am
Thursday – Free Practice 3 – 10.45pm
Friday – Hyper Pole – 3.45am
Friday – Free Practice 4 – 5.45am
Saturday – Warm Up – 7.45am
Saturday- Race – 11pm
When is the 24 Hours of Le Mans?
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is held over five days, starting with practice on Wednesday. Teams will have just one session to get up to speed before qualifying on Thursday morning. The teams will then spend the next practice sessions either getting their car in the set-up window for the race or primed for the Hyper Pole top 10 shootout. Teams will practise during the day and night before the race on Saturday.
When does the race start?
Racing is set to get underway on the stroke of midnight on Saturday. Pre-race coverage on Stan Sport begins at 11pm.
Hypercar, LMP2, and LMGT3 explained
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is split into three classes: Hypercar, LMP2, and LMGT3.
Each class fights for its own trophies and has its own podium. The classes all jockey for position on the track at once, which is a challenge in itself with speed disparities.
Hypercar is for the fastest cars and this year features a massive grid of 23 cars.
Hypercars are dubbed "prototypes" – bespoke racers that bear no resemblance to any road-going car.
Winning the Hypercar class comes with the most prestige. The likes of Porsche, Lamborghini, BMW, Ferrari, Peugeot, and Cadillac have entries in the top class.
LMP2 is slightly slower than Hypercar and this year features 16 cars, all racing an Oreca prototype powered by a Gibson-built V8.
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LMGT3 is new for 2024, replacing GTE and GTE-Am.
LMGT3 has what's called a 'Pro-Am' rule, meaning at least one driver must be an amateur.
The class features a variety of manufacturers including. These cars resemble their road-going counterparts, like the Ford Mustang, Aston Martin Vantage, Corvette C8, Ferrari 296, Lamborghini Huracan, and Porsche 911 to name a few.
In every class, each car must have three drivers who share duties across the race. One of those drivers will qualify the car.
How many drivers compete at Le Mans
A total of 186 drivers will compete across the three classes.
What is Hyper Pole?
A half-hour session will determine who starts at the front of the grid in each class.
At the end of qualifying on Thursday, the top eight cars in each class will battle for pole position on Friday.
The times set in that session will determine the grid from first to eighth.
Who are the Australians competing at Le Mans?
Matt Campbell will lead the way for Australia in the Hypercar class. He'll be part of the Porsche Penske Motorsport outfit. Campbell will race the No.5 Porsche 963 alongside Denmark's Michael Christensen and Frenchman Frederic Makowiecki.
James Allen will make his sixth start in the famed endurance race. He joins the Duqueine Team with John Falb (USA) and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer (France).
With Yasser Shahin's inclusion in the LMGT3 class, Australia will have three drivers in each class. He'll race a Porsche 911 GT3 R with Morris Schuring (Netherlands) and Richard Lietz (Austria).
Who are the other big names?
There are a slew of ex-Formula 1 and current IndyCar drivers in the Hypercar class.
Notable ex-F1 drivers include former Toyota and Sauber star Kamui Kobayashi, ex-AlphaTauri/Toro Rosso drivers Nyck De Vries, Sebastien Buemi, and Brendon Hartley.
F1 driver turned IndyCar front-runner Romain Grosjean will race for Lamborghini while Scott Dixon and Alex Palou will join Cadillac.
Other big names include Robert Kubica, Stoffel Vandoorne, Paul Di Resta, Jean-Eric Vergne, Daniil Kvyat, and Antonio Giovinazzi.
24 Hours of Le Mans spotter guide
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Where is Le Mans held?
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is held at Circuit de la Sarthe.
The circuit is made up mostly of roads around the city of Le Mans, which is home to about 150,000.
Is a Hypercar faster than F1?
Hypercars are not faster than modern-day F1 cars. A contemporary F1 car has never cut a lap in anger around the street circuit.
The closest comparison between the cars is at Spa-Francorchamps. Hypercars are roughly 15 seconds slower on outright pace than F1 cars.
Do drivers sleep?
Although the race is 24 hours long, the drivers are up early and into the car for Saturday's warm-up session.
After the race begins at 11 am (local time), drivers take turns over the course of the 24 hours. When they're not driving, they're either focused on the race or taking power naps.
Some drivers don't sleep, others might get roughly four hours at a time before needing to jump back in the car and race again.
Who has the most Le Mans wins?
Tom Kristensen, or 'Mr Le Mans', is the most successful driver at Le Mans, winning the race nine times (1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2013)
What is the lap record at Le Mans?
The fastest lap ever recorded since the most recent reconfiguration of the circuit was set in 2017 by Kamui Kobayashi during Hyper Pole where he set a 3:14.791s.
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