LISTEN: Genesis fires up its Le Mans Hypercar for the first time

Crucial Milestone Achieved

Genesis Magma Racing on Friday said it had achieved an important milestone in getting its GMR-001 Hypercar onto the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) grid for the 2026 season. On July 9, an engine was installed in the first GMR-001 chassis and successfully fired up, on schedule, and you can listen to it in the video below.

Genesis has been running bench tests of the engine, a twin-turbocharged V8 that will be paired with a hybrid system, per WEC Hypercar-class rules, since February. That included running it through its rev range and all seven gears of the transmission, and testing it in combination with the hybrid system. But this is the first time it’s run in a car.

Strong Partnerships

The fire-up took place at chassis builder Oreca’s shop in Le Castellet, France, not far from Genesis Magma Racing’s home base and the Paul Ricard racetrack. Hypercar rules require teams to base their cars on chassis from one of several constructors, of which Oreca is one.

The team also had a soft opening of sorts at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, entering an Oreca 07 in the LMP2 class. That car (which was run by the IDEC Sport team) was driven by three-time Le Mans winner André Lotterer, who has already been confirmed for a Genesis Magma Racing seat, and Jamie Chadwick and Mathys Jaubert, who are part of the team’s “Trajectory” program.

Genesis claims the V8 engine was designed with lessons learned from parent brand Hyundai’s successful World Rally Championship (WRC) program. Cars in the top Rally1 class in which Hyundai competes have 1.6-liter turbocharged inline-fours, so Hyundai’s powertrain engineers essentially combined two of those engines to make one V8.

Plenty Of Work Ahead

With the engine successfully fired up in a GMR-001 chassis, Genes Magma Racing is now closer to being able to start track testing, which is expected to get underway before the end of the year.

“It’s now when we can start physically connecting all the different strands of development work that we’ve been following for the last year with our powertrain and design teams,” François-Xavier Demaison, the team’s technical director, said in a statement. “The successful GMR-001 fire-up is confirmation of our work so far, but also the start of the next stage of the development that comes with testing.”

After debuting it in the 2026 WEC season—including the 24 Hours of Le Mans—Genesis hopes to bring the GMR-001 to North America for the 2027 IMSA sports-car racing series, as IMSA’s LMDh ruleset aligns with the WEC’s Hypercar rules. All of this racing activity will help promote Genesis’ new line of Magma road cars, the first of which will be the GV60 Magma EV.