McLaren F1 team confirms Jenson Button to make one-off Monaco GP return

It's been confirmed that Jenson Button will replace Fernando Alonso for McLaren Honda at the Monaco Grand Prix, as the Spaniard tackles the daunting Indianapolis 500 for the first time on the same weekend.

But the 37 year old Englishman will not test the car first on track, just on the simulator.

Alonso is on a quest to win the "triple crown" of Monaco GP, Indy 500 and Le Mans 24 hours victories, a feat that has only been done once, 50 years ago by Graham Hill.

Button signed a contract at the end of 2016 as a reserve driver for McLaren, which meant that they could call on him if needed and with an option to race in 2018. He has not driven the car yet in the simulator and will need to test the car before practice in Monaco. The Bahrain test next week provides an opportunity for that, but McLaren team boss Eric Boullier said that the team and driver have decided that it is not worth it to disrupt their test programme,

"We agreed the track layout here (Bahrain), even running practice one in Barcelona, it will not be very useful," said Boullier. "He is fit, he is ready and having Oliver Turvey next week in the car is part of our fine-tuning the correlation with our simulator.

"The simulator in MTC (McLaren Technology Centre) is very accurate now and we both believe that it is better for (him) to spend a couple of days in the simulator driving this car model around the streets of Monaco."

Once again McLaren has dominated the news agenda in the home race of their largest shareholder, the Bahraini Mumtalakat group

Button is a Monaco GP winner and has always gone well at the track. He also provides a lot of experience for the team and will more than fill the gap left by Alonso at high level sponsor functions, which are a feature of the Monaco GP weekend.

Yesterday Lewis Hamilton had said that he would welcome the return of Button in a one-off appearance,

"I think it would be great for the sport to have Jenson back in. Because I like Jenson and I think he’s still one of the best drivers and his calibre is still higher than any other driver that’s going to be able to take that spot for sure," he said.

Button said: “I’m thrilled to be making a one-off return to Formula 1 racing, and I couldn’t think of a better place to make that return than my adopted home Grand Prix: Monaco.

“I’ve won the race before, in 2009, and it’s one of my all-time favourite racetracks. It’s a tricky street circuit on which a good driver can really make a difference – and, although the McLaren-Honda MCL32 hasn’t begun the season well, I think it may be more suited to Monaco than to the faster circuits that Fernando [Alonso] and Stoffel [Vandoorne] have raced it on so far this season.

“OK, I realise we won’t have a realistic chance of repeating my 2009 victory, but I think we’ll have a opportunity to score world championship points, which will be very valuable to the team in terms of constructors’ rankings.

“As for Fernando, I hope he not only fares well at Indy but enjoys it too. It’ll be a great experience for him. He’s an excellent driver, as we all know, and he’s very experienced, so, although super-speedway driving techniques will be all-new to him, I expect him to get to grips with it all pretty quickly. And on Sunday evening, after the Monaco Grand Prix, I’ll sit down and watch him do his stuff on TV. I’m looking forward to that too.

“But most of all I’m looking forward to pitting myself against the unique racing challenge that is the Monaco Grand Prix. I’ll drive the MCL32 around Monaco in the McLaren sim beforehand, and I reckon I’ll be ready for the race after doing that. I’m supremely fit, having done a lot of triathlon training recently, so I have no worries on that score. And it’ll be nice to say ‘hi’ to all my old Formula 1 mates too, and hopefully to give the fans something to cheer about.”