Genesis Heads to Fuji With Momentum, Two Past Winners, and No Track Data
The Korean brand's rookie Hypercar team arrives in Japan off a seventh-place finish in Austin — with no test data, two former Fuji winners, and its first motorsport festival back home near Seoul.
Genesis Magma Racing's first FIA World Endurance Championship season just produced its best result — and the next round is the race the team knows least. The Korean brand heads to the 6 Hours of Fuji on September 25–27 with no data from the Japanese circuit, no pre-event test, and three weeks to act on what it learned in Texas.
At Lone Star Le Mans in Austin, the #17 GMR-001 Hypercar of André Lotterer, Pipo Derani, and Mathys Jaubert finished seventh, the team's best WEC result to date and its second points finish of the year after an eighth place at Spa in May. The sister #19 car came home 15th — a result chief engineer Justin Taylor bluntly pinned on a strategic error that left the car at the back of the field.
The short turnaround has gone into operational fixes rather than hardware, with the team targeting cleaner processes in both qualifying and the race. The car itself is trending the right way: both GMR-001s have now finished without technical trouble for two races running.
Fuji is a blind spot for the engineers, but not for the drivers. Paul-Loup Chatin arrives as a defending winner, having taken the #35 Alpine to victory at Fuji last September — his only WEC win so far, Alpine's first since 2022, and the 100th race in the championship's history. Lotterer, who spent 15 years racing in Japan and holds titles in the country's top GT and single-seater series, counts a 2024 Fuji win among his results at the track, according to the team.
Points for the #19, a Festival Back Home
The target Genesis has set is modest but concrete: a first points finish for the #19 car, which is still empty-handed in 2026. The engineering checklist is less modest. Taylor says the car must be fast on Fuji's long main straight, stable through the high-speed 100R corner, and gentle on rear tires in the twisty final sector — all under a near-constant threat of rain.
"We'll lean heavily on simulation and the setup knowledge we've accumulated across the season," Taylor said.
The lone Asian round is also the closest thing the Korean team has to a home race. Genesis is bringing VIP guests and customers from South Korea into the WEC paddock, while fans at home can watch a live screening at the Genesis Magma Racing Live Festival at Starfield Hanam near Seoul — the brand's first large-scale motorsport event in Korea. On display: the #19 GMR-001 that completed the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Magma GT3 Concept unveiled at the French race in June.
The race starts Sunday, September 27. One round remains after that — the season finale at the 8 Hours of Bahrain in early November.
