Genesis GMR-001 Prototype To Race at Le Mans, IMSA

New York, NY — Genesis Motors took to the stage at their Genesis House customer experience in New York City to unveil a very non-city car: the spectacular and very orange GMR-001 prototype racer, set to compete in the LMDh class of the FIA World Endurance Series next year, and IMSA the year after that. “GMR” stands for “Genesis Magma Racing”, a spinoff of Genesis’ Magma performance brand introduced last year, and also the inspiration for the orange livery. Just as we think “Ferrari” when we see a red racecar, Genesis is hoping we’ll think of its brand when we see orange streaking across the tarmac in Spa, Le Mans and Daytona.

While the track may be some pretty uncharted territory for Genesis, parent company Hyundai has had plenty of experience – and success – in racing both on and off the track; in the tarmac world, they have competed in the world of touring car racers for some years now. Hyundai’s factory World Rally Championship efforts have resulted in manufacturer’s championship victories in 2019 and 2020, with Belgian Hyundai driver Thierry Neuville taking 2024 WRC driver’s championship honours in the i20 N Rally1 hatchback. Lessons learned on the rally circuit have made their way to the GMR-001; its hybrid V8 is actually two rally car four-cylinder engines working in parallel.

There’s a driver correlation as well, in that one of the two drivers Genesis has announced to be driving the 001 was born in Germany, but raised in Belgium: sports and prototype racing ace André Lotterer. Brazilian Luis “Pipo” Derani will also be at the helm, with other drivers yet to be named as Genesis Magma will be fielding two cars in WEC/IMSA. Lotterer’s accolades include two WEC drivers’ titles, three wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Japanese touring car title in 2006, 2010 and 2011. Derani’s racing resumé includes wins at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2016, ’18, ’19 and 2023 and at the famous 24 Hours of Daytona in 2016.

Perhaps the biggest name coming to team Genesis Magma is team boss Cyril Abiteboul of Renault F1 fame, a team he’s led on two separate occasions with a stint at Caterham F1 in between. He is now Hyundai Motorsport president, and he is excited.

“It’s not every day that you can start up from nothing,” he said. “I think motorsport is a good evolution for the (Hyundai) group, and the Genesis brand in particular.

“We have a company that has been transformed by quality first, then technology and design. I believe that motorsport can be the next transformation platform for Hyundai group and another pillar for out Genesis product.”

In addition to increasing the brand’s visibility on the world stage, he also thinks Genesis’ motorsport involvement can speak to a new customer base.

“After 10 years, (Genesis) has had a lot of success. But if we want to go further – and grow buyer consideration – we want more visibility and IMSA is a great platform for that.

“This isn’t just any kind of advertising,” he said. “This is battling against BMW, battling against Porsche, battling against Cadillac. The passion and emotion of motorsport speaks to a certain category of person. It will make them put Genesis higher on their shopping list.”

That’s no small talk, especially since the GMR-001 program has gotten off the ground in short order. If you’ll remember: it took years of trying after Mazda’s win at Le Mans in 1991 before a Japanese effort regained top spot on the podium at the famous endurance test, with Toyota finally taking the honours in 2018. It will be interesting to see if Genesis will be able to cut into that timeline. They have the team in place; time will tell if they have the guts to stick it to the seasoned vets in the biz.