Genesis to Only Test in Europe Before WEC Debut

Genesis Magma Racing’s testing plans ahead of the GMR-001’s competitive debut in 2026 will not feature any running outside of Europe, with team principal Cyril Abiteboul saying that the brand could not make such plans work from a “logistical perspective.”

The Korean brand will step into the FIA World Endurance Championship next year with its ORECA-chassised LMDh car, most recently announcing a number of key hires to its program at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month.

The first test car is set to be assembled this month ahead of a maiden on-track test at Paul Ricard in August, with the Le Castellet circuit adjacent to the team’s facility in the South of France.

Abiteboul stated that the plan to roll out the GMR-001 in August was “always the target,” with the team working backwards from its mandated wind tunnel homologation at the end of the year in order to lay out its testing plans.

“What do we want to have completed before homologation?” Abiteboul told Sportscar365. “We said very quickly, six test sessions of three days.

“So working backwards, that gives you the date by which you need to start testing before any formal test.

“When you start booking circuits, when you want to start booking all the logistics associated to a track test, you want to have a bit of running before to make sure that everything is working more or less as per plan.”

Abiteboul revealed that Genesis has had to make some “concessions” with its testing plans as it works towards getting the car homologated for its 2026 WEC debut, which means that testing at any non-European circuits has been ruled out.

“We had to make the concession, but that concession we made a while ago, not to go overseas, we’ll be in Europe,” he said.

“So we’ll be over here. Stateside would have been good for IMSA preparation, but it could not work from a logistic perspective before homologation.

“But obviously that’s still something that we are contemplating in doing in the buildup for the IMSA program, but also with our future to be appointed partner in IMSA.

“We are not going to have the time to [test] in the Middle East. Frankly we would have liked to, so that’s why we are focusing on Europe.

“Some of that [will be] in France. We’ll go to Portugal, we’ll go to Spain. So that’s what will take place.”

While initial testing is set to begin with only a single car, Abiteboul outlined that Genesis plans to ramp up its program to include a second chassis “as quickly as possible.”

“It’s always good to have a car [with which] you focus on reliability runs and another car that focuses on a more performance-driven run,” he said.

“We would also like to do a 24-hour run as early as possible.”

Abiteboul: Genesis’ 2027 IMSA Debut May Come After Daytona 

Abiteboul also hinted for the first time that Genesis’ IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship program, which is scheduled to come online with an as yet unnamed partner team in 2027, may not make its debut at that year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Genesis has yet to reveal the identity of the team it has chosen to partner with for its North American campaign, despite Abiteboul previously stating that that decision would be made in the second quarter of this year.

“Frankly, we are giving ourselves a bit of a breathing space here on that one,” Abiteboul said.

“I said that we are on target, but we don’t want to sound arrogant and we need to check that it’s real when we go to the physical world.”

Abiteboul went on to state that there is a wish for things to be “under control” before further expansion to prevent the program from ‘stretching itself too thin.’

“I like to make sure that you know things are still under control before we start expanding things,” he said.

“We are still targeting 2027 for an entry in IMSA. Is that the start, is that a bit later?

“There are also lots of things going on, we still are involved in the WRC programs, we’ve got the WEC, we’ve got the WRC, we don’t want to stretch ourselves too thin by trying to do too many things at the same time.

“Right now, it’s more or less under control, but I feel that the IMSA element is the thing that I want to add when I feel that the rest is more secure.

“I also want to take the time to choose the right partners. It’s an important decision. And we’ve had a number of conversations and as I said, I want to make sure that we do the right thing.”

When asked directly if that means that the GMR-001 may miss the Rolex 24 in 2027, Abiteboul replied: “Yes, it’s always a possibility.

“I always stated that way I believe when it comes to the entry point in IMSA. WEC, definitely targeting the start of the season. Absolutely no intent to move from that.

“But I think [with] IMSA in particular, you’re starting with Daytona. We know it’s a challenging race. It’s an important race. We don’t want to start with giving a bad impression. That’s the most important thing. “