Something I’ve realised: we’re not F1 drivers, we’re racing drivers. We love racing things. And the advantage of leaving F1 is that I have the freedom to drive other things, and that is properly awesome.
Is it a speed thing? A boys’ toys thing? No. Don’t think so. I flew a Learjet once; the pilot let me have a go while I was renting it. The weird thing is, you turn and if you don’t pull back, the nose dips. Also when you’re turning, you’re turning from the rear, so you have oversteer the whole time, which I hate – I hate oversteer – so I was turning and the rear was turning, not the front, and it was the weirdest feeling. Ugh.
I’ve also flown a propeller plane. I even lined it up for the runway at Guernsey, which was pretty awesome, especially as Guernsey was the intended destination. Generously, I let the pilot take the controls when we got too low.
Other than that, no, I don’t have the urge to race planes, or boats. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got to have tyres on the road. And four of them at that. I drove a three-wheeler car once and didn’t get on with it, because I just didn’t get the right feeling from it. I drive with my bum a lot more than with my feet or hands. I feel the car with my arse, and I need two tyres on the road at the back to do that.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that even though I’ve left F1 – at least as a driver – I very much have not left racing. For a start, I’ve been doing a lot of karting here in LA. Will I ever be as good as I was when I was 17? No, is the answer. But I can have a laugh trying, and it’s great fun to mess with people’s expectations. After all, I’m an old geezer (I’m not really an old geezer, I’m 39, but in karting terms I’m ancient) and people don’t expect me to be quick in a kart because I’m from Formula One and the two worlds are so far apart. You don’t expect the winner of Wimbledon to be ace at ping-pong just because they both involve a ball, a net and the potential for a backhand smash.
The bigger question for me is whether I’d really want to aim that high. To which the answer, again, is probably no. I just want to continue enjoying it and the best way for me to stop enjoying something is to start putting myself under pressure. What’s the point of escaping the intense environment of F1 just to be in another pressure cooker?
So no, I’d like to do some club races here in America. It’ll be cool, turning up in a transit van to karting – just like the old days with Dad. I’m even getting my old Rocket colour scheme sorted for the Karts.
Mainly, though, my actual racing job these days is Super GT.
I’ve dropped the G-bomb a few times. ‘GT’. And if you’ve been wondering what it’s all about, read on, because in my opinion, GT Racing is the best in the world. And I’m not just saying that because in 2019 I won the Super GT Championships with my Japanese team, Team Kunimitsu. Or maybe I am. I dunno. I’ll have to give that one a bit more thought.
Not to be confused with GT3, which is basically the supercars that you see on the road stripped out, strengthened, and with a roll cage put in, a Super GT car has a carbon-fibre monocoque, like a Formula One car, but is big enough for two people, with a shell that sits on top of it. This thing has 650 horsepower, lots of downforce – not as much as in an F1 car, but still a lot – and they weigh about 1,000kg, 350kg more than an F1 car, which from a driving point of view may well be the biggest difference between the two, and is definitely what makes them about 15 seconds a lap slower than an F1 car. Racing only in Japan, at Suzuka, which just happens to be my second-favourite-ever circuit, and the old F1 track in Fuji, it’s called Super GT, because it’s… um, super.
I first drove one in 2016 when I was still racing in F1. Honda, who were supplying engines for McLaren, have a Honda Thanks Day every year, where fans can see the cars driving around in Motegi: F1 cars, Indy cars, Super GT, loads of different motorbikes. I used the opportunity to bag myself a test on the Super GT car, had so much fun in it and said to the guys, ‘Is there any possibility of me racing that car in 2018?’
And they said, ‘We’d love you to race! Why don’t you do the Suzuka 1000K?’
This was a one-off race that I ended up driving in 2017 (the only two races I did in 2017 were the Monaco GP in F1 and that) with the Mugen Motorsports team. So I drove for them and had a great time. I mean, it wasn’t a good race, we had a couple of punctures and a drive-through penalty, so we didn’t finish very high up but, I had a blast doing it, so when they said, ‘Do you want to do 2018?’ I was like, Bring it on.
Honda has five cars in the Super GT all run by different teams, but there was one team in particular that I wanted to drive for, Team Kunimitsu, because I’d watched them for years, appreciated their history and admired their driver, Naoki Yamamoto, who is now my teammate.
It’s a challenge. Though there is downforce in Super GT it’s more mechanical-grip driven, and because I’m an aerodynamic guy, and I’ve spent years honing my skills of working with aerodynamics and not mechanical grip, which is tyres and suspension, I’m still not there. It’s a very different way of driving. But I like a challenge. I like to learn.
All of the debriefs are in Japanese, and my Japanese pretty much stops and starts at ‘sushi’ and ‘sake’. And since there’s very little raw fish talk in a racing debrief, I just stand there like a lemon waiting for them to finish so we can try and speak English together.
I must admit, I thought I’d arrive in Japan, enjoy the great racing then get out of the car and be chilled enough to let them do the work. But no, it turns out that I can’t quite switch off. I want to be involved. I want to help make the car quicker, which can be difficult when you’re English speaking and, the inexperienced one in the team. All the time when we test, it’s my teammate they test first. He’s the number one, which is so surreal and not something I’ve ever had in in Formula One before, where it’s virtually unheard of for teams to play favourites (despite the suspicions and accusations that constantly arise)
It’s a slightly hermetic life, different from what I was used to in Formula One. Not only are there are eight races a year and I travel to Japan probably another eight or nine times for testing as well – which is a whole heap of long-haul flights – but there’s a lot of waiting around, and I spend plenty of time sitting around looking at my phone and eating cold bento boxes. Some days I get to the circuit at 9.30am and don’t strap into the car until 2.30pm.
What makes it worthwhile is the racing, which is properly awesome. Naoki and I won the Championship in 2018 and there was great fighting over each of the eight races, right to the very end of the season. It was brilliant, especially when you consider that it was my debut season.
At the time of writing, I’m still racing, but we’ll have to see what happens in 2020. What I would love to do in the future – and it might be as early as next year – is race in America. NASCAR would be great and, as you’ll soon discover, I’ve got plans to do something with off-road trucks, although that’s more for shits and giggles.
As for paid-for racing, I feel that my future will definitely be going down the aero route, which would be racing IMSA in America. IMSA cars are similar to Le Mans cars: 650 horsepower, completely carbon monocoque – like a Formula One car but with a roof and flip-up doors. With the engineering being closer to what I’ve been used to working with in Europe, I know that getting into that car, I’d be competitive – perhaps even more competitive than I have been in Super GT – chiefly because it’s downforce-driven. Taking part you’ve got ex-F1 drivers, ex-Indy car drivers, former drivers from other categories doing it, which is great. There are some real characters in that game. To cap it all off they have the centrepiece race, the Daytona 24 Hours, which is the big one. You get a Rolex if you win, which would really impress my missus.
In the meantime, I have a team in GT3 – it’s a full-on name, Jenson Team Rocket RJN – which races in Europe. Non-profit so far, and it doesn’t take up masses of my time, but I love the fact that we’re bringing the Rocket name back, which was my father’s karting name, and I’d love to help some young talent through the GT ranks. Maybe even my own son, eventually.
What else? Well, endurance races are great because they’re such a team effort. Even without the best car, you can still win simply by doing a better job as a team. But, for me, it would be a Championship thing, I prefer to compete in Championships, because it’s only over a whole season that you really know whether or not you’ve done a better job than the other guys. When you win a race the emotions are very high; your adrenalin’s through the roof. Team Kunimitsu won a race last year and the guys were crying their eyes out, but we won the Championship and they were much more reserved. It’s more that little wink, like, We did it. It’s that feeling that lives with you forever. You’re a Champion, you haven’t been a Champion, you are a Champion. I know that from my World Championship in Formula One. It’s never going to go away. It’s with me forever.