The golden era of endurance racing continues unabated, with McLaren now confirming it’ll enter a hypercar at Le Mans in 2027. Among its dozen or more rivals on track will be this, the now full-scale, fully revealed Genesis GMR-001.
If you’re unsure about a premium Korean brand taking on Ferrari, Porsche and Aston on the world stage, then the great minds leading the Genesis effort – including team principal Cyril Abiteboul – are shared with the Hyundai WRC campaign. Theirry Neuville is reigning champion in his i20 N, after all. That particular car is quite pivotal, having donated its engine to the Genesis cause. Two of them, in fact, a pair of 1.6-litre turbo fours bolting together to make a 3.2-litre twin-turbo V8 ready to be shackled to the stock LMDh hybrid elements.
The Genesis Magma Racing team hasn’t been going long, and it’s taken just four months of engine development to get one firing up on the dyno this week despite 50 per cent of the components being renewed. “It was already quite a mighty engine that can produce in excess of 400hp,” Abiteboul tells PH at the glitzy New York launch. “So with two of them we’re actually capable of more than the regulations.” Those currently peg Hypercars at 670hp.
Two cars will run in the World Endurance Championship – and thus Le Mans – from 2026, with a two-car IMSA programme in the States from ’27. Genesis’ presentation of the car talked chest-thumpingly about winning, but what’s the reality for Cyril?
“We are building the race team. We are not using a team that already exists, we want to do it ourselves, which means ramping up gradually. We believe that it's the best way we learn about the technology and improve the car. So we’ll use 2026 to learn, ‘27 to get podiums and ‘28 to start winning races and championships.”
Four cars mean enrolling plenty of drivers too. Two have been confirmed so far, both au fait with endurance racing and playing development and advisor roles as well as pedalling the car itself. Luis “Pipo” Derani is prolific in the US but is moving across to Europe to plug properly into the GMR-001’s development, which begins in earnest in the summer. Three-time Le Mans winner and reigning WEC champion André Lotterer already lives in Monaco and is excited to start a new chapter in his career.
“The effort going into this project – into all the details and the quality of everything – is already so high,” he tells me. “It’s fantastic to be in this project from the beginning. It’s a great new challenge to use the experience I have in motorsport to be able to shape a team, to help decide what we want and how we want it.
“Our aim is to be as competitive as possible from the beginning, but competition is very high. There are a lot of manufacturers already there, so we need to catch up and get to their level. But I can’t wait to show the world who Genesis is.”
The other places are up for grabs; a warm-up LMP2 team is already leading the 2025 European Le Mans Series standings with Britain’s Jamie Chadwick among the drivers hoping for a call up if their form continues.
The design of the GMR-001 has been penned by Luc Donckerwolke, who claims he always wanted to be a racing driver. And he says it’s as much about the bright orange (sorry, magma) livery as the styling. The colour “symbolises Korea’s vibrant energy” while Luc declares its gradient from light to dark as “an optical doppler effect that expresses the glorious sound of the V8 twin-turbo engine in motion.” Let’s hope it makes a damn good noise in the traditional way, too.
The big question, then: will it supersede the Hyundai WRC programme in Cyril’s diary and the wider group budget? “No it does not,” the boss tells me. “The rally programme has to do its own thing. Whether we extend our commitment to WRC is something that we are looking into according to the [new] regulations. There is lots of discussion going on about that right now. But it's totally independent to this programme.”
The i20 N was a fairly special road car. Will Genesis’ production fodder get a similar boost from its Hypercar exploits? “The GMR-001 Hypercar serves as a dynamic testbed for technologies that will elevate the Magma sub-brand,” is the official word. “Lessons learned on track – in durability, thermal management, and hybrid efficiency – will directly enhance Genesis road cars.” We’re still waiting on that GV60 Magma, but its facelift (or perhaps replacement) already looks ripe to benefit from the hard yards around La Sarthe. Bring it on.
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