Despite the differences however, the experience brought back the memories of Button’s championship-winning season. “It feels so natural,” he said. “I get out on track and it’s second nature because you remember [where everything is].
“It’s something that I spent many moments in. Lots of emotion: negative, positive, everything that you can possibly imagine went through my head that season. I’ve got so many memories, and it comes flooding back as soon as they start [the car]. It’s back immediately.
“People forget how special these cars were, in terms of the size, the weight, the sound. Pretty spectacular.”
It’s also a rare sight: the weekend is only the second time that Button has been back behind the wheel of the car since the 2009 season and he warned: “I don’t think we’re going to see this car run much after this weekend.”
Battle 2
Charging through the field in the Protheroe Cup
After the Brawn demonstration run and three practice sessions on Saturday, that evening brought Button’s first race of the weekend in the single-make, two-driver Protheroe Cup for Jaguar E types, marking the 65th anniversary of the sleek sports car.
Sharing with William Paul, owner of the 1962 red fixed-head coupe, Button took the seat of the No5 car on lap 12 and soon found himself eighth, with a top five finish on the cards.
At the front of the race, Gregor Fisken had handed over the second-placed car to Dario Franchitti. With a series of spectacularly blistering laps, the four-time IndyCar champion was out in the lead and destined for victory, so attention naturally turned to the rapidly advancing Button.
Fifteen laps in, he was 12sec behind the No7 car. Three laps later he was past, in seventh and closing on the Jeremy Cottingham in the No66; his smooth driving style being applied to some of the longest, most precise drifting seen in the field.
He dispatched Cottingham on lap 23, putting him in fifth thanks to an earlier spin ahead, and next on his list was the No11 drop-top E-type driven by Jack Tetley — who was not going to give the world champion an inch.
What followed was four minutes of precise defending from Tetley and unrelenting pressure from Button; cars twitching at the limit in what appeared to spectators as a perfectly synchronised drifting display.
Tetley would not give way and he crossed the line in front of fifth-placed Button.
Battle 3
Fending off a Ford and Ferrari in the Phil Hill Cup
It had looked to be all going Button’s way in Sunday afternoon’s Phil Hill Cup, when he swept into the lead from the front row in another Jaguar E-type — his own 1962 car bought specifically to race at Goodwood — and began pulling away from the trailing pack.
But a red flag, caused by Bill Shepherd’s heavy crash in a Shelby Cobra, brought a reset in the race.
As concern for Shepherd turned to relief at news that he was safely out of the car and being examined by medics, the scene was set for a more competitive end to the race — an eight minute sprint.
Button again took the lead but this time was closely pursued by Nikolaus Ditting’s Ford GT40, which had moved up from tenth to fourth in the first stage of the race.
The cars were almost side-by-side, leading into Woodcote just before the chicane at the end of the lap, where it was obvious how much Button was having to push to stay in the lead: he emerged onto the start-finish straight with three red stripes on his front wing, from the paintwork on the barrier.
Button’s brush with the barrier was visible after the race
Ditting maintained the pressure, but the time was ticking away and Yelmur Buurman’s Ferrari 250 LM was working his way towards the leaders, having been on the third row of the restart.
The irresistible force of the Ferrari 250 LM drew towards the so-far immovable Button and, for a a brief sequence of corners, the precisely-drifted Jaguar led the leaning GT40 and the tail-wagging Ferrari in a spectacular convoy.
The might of the Ferrari overcame the GT40 on lap four, as Buurman slid up the inside at Lavant: he and Button crossed the line nose-to-tail, the gap recorded as 0.2sec in favour of the Jaguar.
With just 40sec remaining, Buurman — an experienced professional GT driver — had just one lap to overcome Button and he tried to take the inside line at Fordwater. With both cars twitching under power, Button held on for the rest of the lap, crossing the line just 0.3sec ahead.
“It was awesome fun,” enthused Button — “really enjoyed it.”
Buurman couldn’t ignore how close he’d come to winning. “If I had known it was the final lap, maybe, you know, who would have known?” he contemplated. “But no, a great battle!”
Battle 4
Fighting Tom Kristensen in a Rover SD1
When Button was growing up in the 1980s, he’d have known the Rover SD1 as a high-powered police pursuit car.
On Sunday, he was the one giving chase, behind the wheel of a Chevy Camaro Z28 as he harried Le Mans great Tom Kristensen in a Sanyo-sponsored SD1.
By the time Button took over from Andrew Smith and Kristensen from Mike Whitaker, we’d already seen a thrilling duel between the two cars, including a hair-raising moment where Whitaker was virtually entirely sideways, on opposite lock, as he battled the Camaro.
Smith came into the pits ahead and handed over to Button. But when, two laps later, Kristensen took the seat in the Rover, he emerged in front of the Camaro, effectively in second place.
It didn’t take long for Button to close up.
“When I got out, Jenson was all over me,” said Kristensen after the race. “I realised, OK I will definitely try and defend myself.”
That he did: tyres were squealing as Kristensen squeezed Button on one side, then another, placing the Rover perfectly to deny him a chance of getting past with just centimetres between the cars.
Then towards the end of the lap, on the approach to Woodcote, Button pulled alongside on the outside. Leaving it late to brake, he swept past Kristensen and pulled ahead in a perfectly-judged move.
Victory would be beyond him, with the Ford Mustang Boss 302 of Romain Dumas and Fred Shepherd clear in front, but Button was pleased with another podium finish.
“It was good fun that,” he said. “It was Really, really good fun. It was a completely different beast to everything else I’ve driven so far. Everything else has got oversteer, this is understeer central!
“I had a good little battle with Tom. I knew it was Tom before I dived around the outside at Turn 1. I was hanging around the outside, I was like, ‘I think I trust him!’”