27/08/2015
NEWS STORY
Jenson Button got his first taste of an FIA World Rallycross Championship Supercar yesterday when he swapped his McLaren-Honda for a JRM Racing Mini RX at Lydden Hill in Kent.
The 2009 world champion flew into the UK with BBC F1 commentator David Coulthard to film a feature that will be aired in the build up to a future Grand Prix.
The premise of the feature was to re-trace some of the steps that Jenson's late father, John, took when he was a prominent rallycross driver in the Seventies. He finished runner up in the 1976 British Rallycross Championship driving a distinctive VW Beetle.
Like his father, Jenson has felt a strong attraction to rallycross - a burgeoning sport that gained FIA World Championship status for the first time in 2014.
"I would not have been F1 world champion if it had not been for my dad and the grass roots of rallycross. That's where I caught the motorsport bug," he said.
For the feature, Jenson and David Coulthard explored the origins of rallycross by taking a 1974 VW Beetle rallycross car out on to the Lydden Hill circuit - regarded as the home of rallycross in the UK - before both men climbed aboard a brace of latest-specification Supercars that are currently being raced in the FIA World Rallycross Championship.
Jenson drove the distinctive JRM Racing Mini RX Supercar that is powered by a 1.6-litre turbo-charged engine and features one of the best handling chassis in the sport. It is capable of accelerating from 0-60 in little more than two seconds.
Jenson's first taste of the JRM Racing Mini RX was clearly enjoyable. Speaking with a broad smile on his face after he'd completed 12 laps, it was the acceleration of the Mini that immediately impressed the 35-year-old. "The lights went out and I was in turn one - lost and confused," he said.
"You need some skills to drive one of these things. It's got so much power you think it's going to be easy; get to the apex full the handbrake and off you go. But it's not like that at all.
"I can't imagine racing one of these five or six abreast going into the gravel. It's absolute madness but it's what you think of as a child - the buzz, the action, the sliding. It was a mega experience."
The Mini RX that Jenson drove will return to FIA World Rallycross Championship action on 4-6 September when the series heads to Loheac in France.
Although he has a contract with McLaren for 2016 there is widespread speculation that the team will place either Kevin Magnussen or Stoffel Vandoorne alongside Fernando Alonso.
Though Button has been linked with other teams, including Williams, which first brought him in to F1, McLaren is said to be keen the popular driver as an ambassador. Linked also with Sports Cars, could Rallycross offer a suitable alternative?