Genesis names Lotterer and Derani as first drivers for 2026 WEC season

Andre Lotterer and Pipo Derani are the first drivers named for the new Genesis LMDh programme that will enter the 2026 World Endurance Championship.

Reigning WEC champion Lotterer and four-time Sebring 12 Hour winner Derani were revealed in the official launch of the entry of Hyundai’s premium brand into top-line sportscar racing.

The wide-ranging announcement in Dubai on Wednesday included the first images of a car to be known as the Genesis GMR-001 Hypercar, a timeline for the expansion of its programme into the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2027 and a tie-up between the German-based Hyundai Motorsport operation co-developing the car with ORECA and the French IDEC Sport race team.

The partnership with IDEC will include a programme in LMP2 in the European Le Mans Series next year to prepare for the WEC entry with a driver line-up including Williams Formula 1 refugee Logan Sargeant.

Lotterer and Derani will lead development of the GMR-001 next year and then move into race seats with a team to be known as Genesis Magma Racing in 2026.

The German, a three-time winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours, is joining the Genesis programme following his departure from Porsche after eight years, which included campaigns in the WEC with the 919 LMP1 in 2017 and the 963 LMDh in 2023-24, as well as three seasons in Formula E with the factory team.

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He described the move to Genesis as “the perfect fit for me to channel my work, my experience, passion and motivation into a new project with a team of highly ambitious individuals”.

“I am excited to start working on this project and build a successful future from the very beginning,” added the 43-year-old.

Derani, 31, is moving from IMSA after announcing in the summer that he intended to leave the Action Express Racing Cadillac squad following six seasons to seek a new career direction.

”The ambition behind Genesis’s endurance racing project and the track record of those involved was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse,” said the Brazilian.

“As a driver, being involved in a project from the start is highly rewarding.”

The official statement from Genesis stated that Lotterer and Derani will be “taking on technical development duties” with the GMR-001 in 2025 but laid down no timeline for the commencement of testing.

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The P2 campaign in the ELMS next season with an ORECA-Gibson 07 run in conjunction with IDEC is being undertaken with an eye on the arrival of the Genesis LMDh in the WEC the year after.

Hyundai Motorsport president Cyril Abiteboul, who will act as team principal of the sportscar squad as he has done with the marque’s World Rally Championship team, said: “We are elevating our circuit racing expertise to a whole new level as we prepare to compete in some of the world’s most challenging series.”

Sargeant will race the P2 entry together with three-time W Series champion and Indy NXT race winner Jamie Chadwick and Porsche Supercup graduate Mathys Jaubert.

The trio were described by Genesis as “a promising line-up of emerging talent”, which suggests they are in the mix for race seats in the WEC squad in 2026.

Sargeant, who lost his F1 drive after August’s Dutch Grand Prix, already has sportscar experience: he contested two ELMS races with the TF Sport-run Team Turkey squad in 2021 as well as three rounds in the Le Mans Cup support series driving an Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo the same year.

Chadwick has also raced sportcars, winning the GT4 class of the British GT Championship in 2015.

The Magma component of the team name for Genesis’s WEC entry comes from the range of concept cars released by the manufacturer.

Genesis Magma Racing will establish a base at the Paul Ricard circuit, adjacent to which ORECA and IDEC have their headquarters.

There are no details as yet of the configuration of the internal combustion component of the GMR-001’s powertrain. The hybrid unit, supplied jointly by Bosch, Willams Advanced Engineering and Xtrac, is common to all to LMDh manufacturers.