Jenson Button has become the third Formula 1 world champion to join the new Extreme E racing series, he has also joined Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg who launched their teams last year. Button's JXBE squad is the 10th entry for the inaugural season which begins in Saudi Arabia in April. Each team in Extreme E has one man and one woman in the line-up, Button's teammate has yet to be announced. "I've followed Extreme E with great interest - what they have managed to create is nothing short of incredible," said the 2009 F1 world champion. "There are so many positives to be taken from this championship. I'm really excited about it, excited about competing against the best in the world in off-road and driving these electric vehicles in place that most people haven't ever been before." The entry list for the climate-aware series features many motorsport greats such as nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb, former DTM and World Rallycross champion Mattias Ekstrom, double WRC champion Carlos Sainz, triple World Rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson and W-Series champion Jamie Chadwick. Button is particularly looking forward to racing against Lewis Hamilton's team which features Loeb. "Racing against his team is going to be tough. He's got [nine-time World Rally champion] Sebastien Loeb, who is one of my heroes from rallying, in his car and I'm going to be up against him," he told Sky Sports. "It's funny, I come at it from a very different background to all these guys and these guys are kind of my heroes. So it's going to be really cool. Great competition and really interesting to see how I fare. "It's five races around the world in areas that have been affected by climate change and that have big environmental impact from climate change. The great thing is that we will be racing in those places, so it's bringing awareness, which is the whole point of this category, and there will also be scientists on the ground researching those areas and hopefully learning from them so we can put it right in the future. "Nobody has put a foot on the ground in some of those areas so it's very exciting and I hope that we can bring as much awareness as possible to those areas."
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