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Keanu Reeves Had a Fanboy Moment Sitting in Formula 1 Driver Jenson Button's Race Car

By Paige Strout Oct 28, 2022 5:55 PMTags
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Watch: Why Keanu Reeves HAD to Tell Formula 1 Champ Jenson Button's Story

Keanu Reeves has done lots of cool things throughout his career, but nothing compares to sitting in an actual race car.

Former Formula 1 driver Jenson Button reminisced about the time he let the John Wick star try out his race car while working together on an upcoming F1 documentary for Disney+ on the latest episode of E! News' digital series DRIVE!.

"When I did some filming with him at Silverstone, he jumped in," Jenson exclusively told host Austin J. Mills. "I was like, 'C'mon Keanu, get in the car.' And initially, he's like, 'No, no, no, no. That's forbidden. I can't jump in your Formula 1 car.' But he did, and his face, he was so excited, and we couldn't get him out."

Jenson said Keanu was his "childhood hero in movies," which made working with him even more special, especially since the documentary will focus on the year Jenson won the F1 World Championship in 2009.

Don't miss new episodes of E!'s digital series DRIVE! every Monday at 8 a.m. PT on E! News' YouTube Channel.

"I raced with Braun, which is a private team in Formula 1, and we came out and we beat all the big guns, all the big manufacturers in Formula 1," the sports star recalled. "So, Keanu was like, 'You know what? We're gonna do a documentary about that so people see the true story of what went down.'"

Just like himself, Jenson said Keanu is "very passionate about his automobiles, his motorbikes [and] his cars." And passion is what motivates Jenson, as he told Austin the thing that drives him to succeed is "wanting to be better every day."

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"I won the World Championship, and I wanted to do something else," he shared, "I went to another team. I went to Lewis Hamilton's team McLaren because I wanted that new challenge. If there's not a challenge, I get bored and I want to do something else, which is exactly what I've always done in my career."

One of the challenges he faces—at least in the U.S.—is also his biggest driving pet peeve. "In the U.K., you have to pull over to the slow lane if you're driving slow," Jenson told Austin. "So, that's my pet peeve, it's people driving in the fast lane when they're driving slow. Get over!"

Hear more from Jenson—including his work with Ant Anstead on the car company Radford Motors—in the full clip above.

Check out more episodes of DRIVE! now on E! Online and E! News' YouTube page.

Catch up on episodes of E!'s digital series DRIVE! on E! News' YouTube Channel.