Genesis Magma Racing has confirmed their start-up of their GMR-001 LMDh car’s engine, in late February, following their recent livery reveal.
Their red and orange Hypercar is powered by a 3.2L twin-turbo V8 engine with origins to the Hyundai World Rally Championship engine.
The Genesis powertrain is derived from the WRC inline four-cylinder motor – sharing up to 60% of components – to create an eight-cylinder internal combustion engine (ICE).
With the chassis developed in partnership with Oreca, the ICE will pair with the LMDh specification Bosch electric hybrid technology to finalise a hybrid petrol-electric powertrain.
“The I4 engine is a very, very sophisticated, very efficient engine,” said Hyundai Motorsport technical director Francois-Xavier Demaison.
“It’s a proper race engine, so it’s a very good base for developing an engine for WEC.
“Rallying is a sort of endurance race, so for an engine to the 24 Hours of Le Mans it’s a good place to start from.
“With the time we had available to develop the engine we immediately knew we did not have time to completely design a new engine from scratch.
“For the main part of an engine you need a long time to design, validate and of course to produce.
“Every part needs to be tested over many kilometres, and the I4 engine from our World Rally Championship car has already been well proven.
“It became the logical step to carry over as many parts as possible from the 4-cylinder engine.”
Work began on the engine’s design in June 2024 and was completed four months later with the first engine assembled in early 2025 prior to this scheduled fire-up.
The start-up signifies a key point in the timeline in preparation for their 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar class debut.
READ MORE: McLaren announce long-awaited WEC Hypercar programme
