Genesis has given us a first proper look at its Hypercar for Le Mans

Exciting news for fans of really long car races – Genesis has marked its first step on the road to competing in the 2026 World Endurance Championship by completing a gigantic five-day test at the Paul Ricard racetrack on the south coast of France. Probably could have done it in three, but the weather was lovely. 

The outfit’s recently revealed GMR-001 Hypercar completed over 500 laps of the track, with the team focusing on calibrating the car’s mechanical and electrical systems, as well as the drivers getting used to the car and offering feedback on engine behaviour. 

The chassis of the new car has been built by French constructor Oreca, while Hyundai has glued together two of its 1.4-litre 4cyl turbo engines from rallying to get everything ready in time, the upgraded Frankenmotor now being a 3.2-litre twin-turbo V8. 

Works pilots André Lotterer and Pipo Derani put in the hard miles to get the test programme underway, having tried the car virtually in the Genesis simulator and conducted some shakedown runs at smaller tracks.

“We’re getting to the point already where we are talking about the performance of the car, which I didn't honestly expect to be doing," said chief engineer Justin Taylor. 

"The drivers are giving us the feedback we need on all the systems and on the side, they're already looking at how to make the GMR-001 Hypercar fast.”

The next phase of the testing programme will see the GMR-001 hit various racetracks around Europe, completing lengthy race simulations in order to make sure that the team and the car will be ready come the start of the 2026 endurance racing season in March. Ex-Caterham and Renault F1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul is in charge of the effort, providing a steady hand at the tiller. 

Perhaps more importantly, Genesis has also released a glimpse of the GMR-001 (check out the gallery up top) in a fetching hue it calls ‘magma orange’, a nod to the new Magma performance sub-brand that the racing team is going to promote. Genesis, just as a reminder, is the posh sub-brand of Hyundai, which has a performance sub-brand called N. Smile and wave, boys. 

Wait, ‘what do you think of the livery?' is where we were going with this – for our money it might not quite be orange enough, but at least the car will be so bright that no one will crash into it going round Arnage in the rain at 2am.