During last night’s Genesis Hypercar media briefing, Genesis Magma Racing’s team principal Cyril Abiteboul and Hyundai Motor Group’s chief creative officer Luc Donckerwolke were asked a handful of questions about the longer-term future for Genesis and Hyundai in motorsport, beyond the factory WEC and IMSA programmes just announced.
One question concerned the potential for customer GMR-001s to be made available to private teams in the future.
“We’ve not built our plan with that assumption,” Abiteboul said. “Porsche has done it and executed it, others have said it and not done it. Two cars in two championships is where we want to start. Then, hopefully, if the car is competitive, we’d be happy to sell a few of them.”
The subject of GT3 also came up, with both Abiteboul and Donckerwolke asked whether or not Genesis would consider adding a production-based GT programme to its prototype effort.
Nothing was ruled out, but it was made clear that the focus will remain solely on the LMDh project for the time being.
“I would not exclude it, but at the time we have to focus on setting up,” Donckerwolke explained. “Nine years ago I had to create this brand, give it a design DNA and build the organisation. It was a big task. We are looking at the future, but the immediate future is to be successful in WEC and IMSA. Then we will look further.”
Abiteboul added: “For GT3, the main thing is you must have the right production car. We don’t want to go there with a sub-optimal product that’s not been designed for racing. That’s the question mark.”
The panel was asked for further clarity on Hyundai’s future in the World Rally Championship too.
There has been much speculation in recent months about whether or not the two-time WRC-winning manufacturer would scale back or end its involvement in rallying to accommodate this new sportscar racing adventure with its premium brand.
According to Abiteboul, no final decisions have been made yet.
“We should not consider trading one for the other,” he said. “WRC needs to have its own destiny based on a number of factors like the regulations. We are a couple of weeks away from finding out what it will look like in the future. And based on that, we will assess our programme.”
