Genesis Favoring Mid-2027 IMSA GTP Debut

Genesis Magma Racing is favoring a mid-2027 entry into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with its GMR-001 to enable more time to develop the LMDh car according to team principal Cyril Abiteboul.

The South Korean manufacturer is joining the FIA World Endurance Championship next year with two cars that it will run in-house, but also previously revealed intentions to race in the WeatherTech Championship from the following year.

In July, Abiteboul revealed to Sportscar365 that Genesis may skip the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona and he now says a possible first 2027 appearance could come at Watkins Glen, which is traditionally the sixth overall event of the year and held in June.

“One compromise that we may have done from our early plans is we were flirting with the idea of starting at the start of 2027 but it was always going to be a bit of a bad idea because the first race is Daytona, which is a brutal start,” Abiteboul said when Sportscar365 asked about its IMSA plans at a Genesis media event and test for the GMR-001 at Barcelona last week.

“It was just stretching the calendar too much, so we will probably enter at some point around Watkins Glen – that’s a possible new target for 2027.”

Abiteboul said Genesis has considered entering one car for the entire 2027 season to aid development, with a second car then joining mid-season, but is now leaning towards both cars starting from the middle of the year.

He added that a later debut would allow more time to make any tweaks based upon the initial WEC outings in 2026.

“If the car was unreliable, we’re not going to start sending cars all over the world for a car that is not reliable,” he said.

Abiteboul reiterated that the plan is for the WeatherTech Championship cars to be run by a partner team and he intends to submit a detailed proposal to Hyundai management in the first quarter of 2026.

Sportscar365 understands that Bryan Herta Autosport, which will be making its WeatherTech Championship debut next year in a partnership with LMP2 squad PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, is the leading contender to land the GTP partner team deal.

“The benefit of having our own team here [in the WEC] was clear,” explained Abiteboul. “You can’t say the same for IMSA, which is a slightly different type of championship with its own spirit and culture.

“But we want to have maximum integration so there may be some engineers that are working on both programs, [chief engineer] Justin Taylor for instance has experience in both championships.

“There’s been lots of discussion, lots of meetings and we’ve visited different possible partners’ base and facilities. We have many decisions and I’m focused on that right now.

“We would like to be part of that [IMSA]. We think it makes sense, it’s a big market, it’s a good championship but the timing is whenever we’re ready.”

Taylor acknowledged that competing in the WeatherTech Championship would be very different to the WEC and said he would want to conduct a test program in America ahead of any race outings.

He said no specific plans have been formalized so far and testing would only commence once a partner team is chosen, and the timescale for entering the championship is confirmed.

“It will be something that we really want to try before and there’s a couple of tracks that have big peculiarities that we feel we need to test before we show up at a race,” added Taylor. “We haven’t identified exactly when we’re going to do that yet.”

Prior to its WEC entry, Genesis linked up with IDEC Sport to run a car in the LMP2 class of the European Le Mans Series as part of its ‘Trajectory Program’ which Abiteboul said is being expanded for next year.

More details are due to be announced about that in January, although reserve driver Jamie Chadwick has been confirmed as remaining part of the scheme.

“It’s not so focused on IMSA for now, but you will see that some of our drivers will have some activities in IMSA, including next year, which is a benefit for us for the following year,” Abiteboul said of the Trajectory Program.