Jenson Button talks Rolex 24 at Daytona, retirement and the future of racing
Oh, and the Daytona on his wrist? There’s a story there
JENSON BUTTON HAS SPENT the better part of two decades mastering speed. A Formula 1 World Champion, a veteran of 17 seasons, and now a defining figure in endurance racing, Button enters 2026 at a rare crossroads – stepping away from professional competition just as the Rolex 24 at Daytona approaches.
And with distance comes clarity: a sharper sense of pace, pressure and what time really means when your entire career has been built around measuring it.
Endurance racing, unlike Formula 1, deals in long arcs rather than quick bursts. It’s as psychological as it is physical – sharing the car, compromising with teammates, adapting to problems that unfold across hours, not laps. It’s a team sport in the purest sense, one that Button says reshaped his understanding of balance, patience and collective effort.
Asked when he feels most in his element during a 24-hour race, Button didn’t romanticise the hardest hours.
“It’s definitely not at 2am. For me, it’s sunrise. Sunrise is a special moment in the race. First of all, it’s beautiful – seeing all these filthy cars racing, covered in rubber and oil. And also, you’ve got through the night where a lot of bad things can happen, and you’re already kind of on the home stretch.
For me, that is the best moment in a car. It’s the quickest time on track and where you can maximise the car that you have.”
It reveals a lot about him: he’s not drawn to the chaos, but to the moment clarity returns – when endurance becomes momentum rather than survival.
That relationship with time is echoed in his connection with Rolex. The brand’s history with endurance racing – including its role as Title Sponsor of the Rolex 24 at Daytona since 1992 – mirrors the sport’s obsession with precision under pressure.
For Button, it’s personal. Early in his career, he bought himself a steel Daytona – and another for his father. Years later, he gave his dad a rose-gold Daytona for his 70th birthday.
After his father’s passing, Button inherited the watch. It’s the one, he says, that people always ask about – not because of what it’s worth, but because of the story wrapped around it.
Even in retirement, Button hasn’t loosened his grip on structure. Years of regimented schedules have shaped how he sees time in everyday life – school runs, training blocks, commitments paced with the precision of a pit sequence. Endurance racing may teach patience on track, but off track, he’s still deeply time-conscious.
And while many drivers ease off after leaving the sport, Button’s competitive streak hasn’t dimmed. He’s taken on HYROX – an eight-kilometre hybrid endurance race – and continues to develop his whisky brand and automotive ventures.
His love for historic cars has only deepened, with a garage now home to machines like a Lotus Cortina and Alfa Romeo GTA. The pace has changed, but the appetite for challenge hasn’t.
Daytona holds its own significance in this next chapter. It’s the place where he first felt the communal intensity of endurance racing – fans camping trackside through the night, the glare of headlights sweeping through darkness, the strange theatre of a race that refuses to sleep.
Button’s retirement marks the close of a remarkable professional era, but nothing about his outlook feels final.
If anything, he approaches this transition with the same instincts that once guided him through the night towards sunrise: conserve where needed, push when it counts, and trust that another chapter – another gear – always waits ahead.
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