Can Button finally end his Silverstone podium hoodoo?

Jenson Button is hoping to end his home race hoodoo and score his first podium finish at Silverstone in almost 20 years on Sunday in his second appearance in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Despite winning 15 grands prix and the world championship in 2009, Button failed to finish on the podium at the British Grand Prix through his 17-season Formula 1 career, taking a best finish of fourth on three occasions.

The anomaly stretches back through his career to 1999 when he won a British Formula 3 race at Silverstone, standing out as one of the most notable quirks of his racing record in F1.

"It’s one of those things, isn’t it? 17 years in F1 and I never got the chance to stand on the podium," Button said when asked by Crash.net about his Silverstone podium drought.

"It’s a pretty awesome podium here. In F1, the crowds are pretty large, hopefully we’ll have some fans here this weekend as well. It would be epic to be on the podium. We’ve got a lot of work to do before we start thinking about that, but it’s something to look forward to."

Button moved into the WEC for the 2018-19 super season with SMP Racing in the LMP1 class, and will line up third for the start of Sunday's six-hour race at Silverstone alongside Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin in the #11 BR Engineering BR1 AER car.

While Button was sceptical of SMP Racing's chances of fighting for victory against the hybrid-powered Toyota cars, the Briton is relishing the chance to fight against fellow privateer Rebellion Racing to take the final podium spot.

"[Toyota] will be four laps ahead I reckon," Button said. "If it’s a clear track and there’s no traffic, we’re probably two seconds per lap slower. But we can’t overtake like they can because we don’t have the boost. In traffic, we’re four seconds per lap slower.

"It’s tricky. We’re not racing them. They’re racing each other. For us, we’ve got the Rebellions which is fun. I don’t know what the DragonSpeed will be like in the race either. That’s going to be a good little race, I think. Such different cars, the Rebellion and the BR1.

"It should be a fun race."