Genesis Magma Racing will make its North American racing debut at Lone Star Le Mans, the fifth round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship, running September 4 to 6 at Circuit of the Americas with the six-hour race on Sunday, September 6. The event follows the series’ summer break and marks the WEC’s only U.S. stop of the season. The team enters the weekend looking to build on Hyperpole appearances at both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 6 Hours of São Paulo, where both GMR-001 Hypercars reached the finish without issues for the first time. The team’s lone points finish of the season came at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in May, where the No. 17 of Pipo Derani, Mathys Jaubert, and André Lotterer placed eighth.
A two-day test at COTA in late July gave the team a baseline setup and an understanding of track conditions, with high ambient and track temperatures a particular focus. The circuit has hosted a WEC round on eight previous occasions, and much of the Genesis lineup arrives with limited experience there. Lotterer is a past Lone Star Le Mans winner from the LMP1 era and finished sixth in the 2024 edition, while Paul-Loup Chatin and Mathieu Jaminet bring Hypercar experience from the most recent WEC visits. The test provided first Hypercar laps at the track for Derani, Jaubert, and Dani Juncadella, and it was Jaubert’s first visit to the circuit altogether. Derani, a two-time IMSA SportsCar champion, has not raced at COTA since 2016, while Jaminet returns to the U.S. as the reigning 2025 IMSA champion and will run a special one-off helmet design for the event.
The GMR-001’s U.S. history predates the race itself, with the full-scale model of the design first shown at the New York International Auto Show in April 2025, wearing the red and orange livery that later appeared on the race car at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The U.S. remains a key market for Genesis, which recently hosted the global launch of the new GV90 in San Francisco.
