Lotterer: Genesis “Emotional” With “First Victory” for Project

Genesis Magma Racing driver Andre Lotterer says the team was left “very emotional” after the “nice surprise” of how well the manufacturer performed on its FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar debut at Imola last weekend.

Despite heading into the event with ambitions of merely seeing the checkered flag and completing more valuable mileage with the new GMR-001, with very little focus on outright performance, Genesis was only 1.2 seconds adrift of the pace in qualifying.

The No. 17 car then ran just outside the top ten for a chunk of the race before slipping back later on when it opted to triple stint on a set of Soft tires amid possible rain that did not materialize.

The sister No. 19 machine did lose around half an hour in the pits early in the race while a sensor issue was fixed, but both Genesis cars were classified in 15th and 17th in the Hypercar ranks.

“We knew we had a good tool but to come here and execute so well without penalties, that was already a first victory,” said Lotterer when asked by Sportscar365 if he was surprised by Genesis’ performance on debut.

“And then in the race we didn’t expect to stay with the pack like we were, so that was a nice surprise and it was fun in the car. Hopefully it will be similar in Spa and we can build from here.”

Lotterer said “we licked blood a bit” when Genesis was not too far adrift of the points in the middle of the race, especially while other manufacturers were recovering from penalties.

“Now we’ve ticked this box off to finish a race and we were all happy and celebrating this, but that’s the only time,” Lotterer added. “Now the focus is on performing better and better.”

Genesis was always going to face a tough debut in the series because not only did it endure a very tight timeframe to develop the car after the program was formally announced late in 2024, it also had to battle with the Balance of Performance of the fastest car from last year because it had no data of its own.

With that in mind, Lotterer said the manufacturer exceeded expectations to be able to fight with other cars.

“Mathys [Jaubert] got in the mix, P11 at one point fighting the Ferrari so that was definitely a highlight which was unexpected and then we started to taste some blood,” he said.

“We made a mistake with the strategy with the rain expecting it to come but it didn’t come, so we lost some time there triple-stinting on the Soft.

“It was very emotional when we crossed the line and everyone saw the car coming across without any problems – I think it showed the good job of everyone paid off.

“I couldn’t have wished for anything better for the first race. Obviously, you don’t normally celebrate a 15th place but, if you look between the lines, I think it looked good.”