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jensen button has confirmed he will retire from professional racing after this weekend’s 8 Hours bahrain Endurance race.
2009 formula one 45 year old world champion retired f1 The end of the 2016 season, however, saw a one-off return at the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix.
Button, who now lives in California, works as a part-time pundit sky sports‘ coverage of F1, but has also raced in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) for Hertz Team Jota over the years.
Yet this weekend’s final round of the 2025 season at the Bahrain International Circuit will be Button’s final professional race.
“This will be my last race, I’ve always loved Bahrain, I think it’s a fun track,” Button told BBC Radio Somerset.
“I will enjoy it as much as I can because this will be the end of my professional racing career.
“I have really enjoyed my time with Jota in the WEC, but my life has become very busy and it is not fair to the team or me to go into 2026 and think I will have enough time for this.
“My kids are four and six and you’re away for a week and you miss so much that you don’t get that time back.
“I feel like I’ve missed a lot over the years, which is OK because I knew it would happen, but I’m not willing to do that again for another season.”
Button has competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the past three years, while his best result in the WEC was a second place finish at the 6 Hours of São Paulo event in July.
The 45-year-old currently sits ninth in the drivers’ championship alongside teammates Earl Bamber and Sébastien Bourdais.
Despite calling it a day professionally, Button would continue to race his classic cars in future events.
He said, “I have classic cars that I love to race and to me it’s exciting because it’s mine – a car that I own – and I love the mechanical aspect of it.”
“It’s very different to the cars I race in WEC and F1, you’re really connected to it which is what I like, having heel and toe, gear shifts being perfect, no aero, it’s all mechanical.”