Genesis: Qatar Postponement Both Helpful, Hindrance

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Genesis Magma Racing team principal Cyril Abiteboul has said the postponement of the Qatar FIA World Endurance Championship opener brought both positives and negatives for the manufacturer’s debut season.

The WEC was due to kick off with an 1812km, ten-hour race in Qatar at the end of March, but this was postponed until October amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

This gave Genesis an extra three weeks before the new season opener at Imola, which Abiteboul said was very helpful from a manufacturing point of view as parts for the GMR-001 Hypercar were still being constructed.

“It was going to be very tight, very marginal to be fully ready for Qatar in particular in terms of supply chain because we pushed very late the development, we pushed very late the homologation,” he told Sportscar365.

“For that respect, governance was very helpful to make it very late.

“But, on the flip side, it puts massive constraint on supply chain, so spare parts availability would have been very, very tight.

“So for sure coming to Imola later we are much better in terms of spares availability, hopefully we’ve got enough of everything to pretty much cover any circumstance, so that’s good.”

However, on the negative side, much of Genesis’ preparation for its WEC was based around the season starting in Qatar, with the team even testing at the Lusail International Circuit in January.

“We had built a test plan, an overall plan for the build of the team with Qatar in mind,” explained Abiteboul.

“I would say it’s more from a team perspective, from the energy we were building, it was a bit of a down in the energy and at some point you need to go racing, you need to get going, you need to have the pressure of competitors to show you where you are, what you’re missing.

“Also, it’s very important to have enough mileage before Le Mans. Let’s see how we can make up for this lost mileage.

“We’ve planned another test in Paul Ricard, we will try to catch up a little bit to do an endurance test. But there’s nothing that will fully replace the pressure and the requirement of proper race action.”

Abiteboul has spoken of how the initial phase of the season is all about reliability for Genesis and ensuring the team is able to run successfully from an operational point of view.

While he acknowledged missing out on a huge chunk of race time prior to the 24 Hours of Le Mans is significant, Abiteboul is confident the team can overcome this setback, with this weekend’s Spa six-hour event the final contest before the WEC’s blue-riband round.

“We have to adapt,” he said. “It’s part of today’s world, it’s part of motorsport, being able to adapt to circumstances and we’re adapting the best we can.”

Another way in which Genesis has demonstrated flexibility surrounds its planned entry into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTP class.

This had originally been planned for 2027 but Abiteboul said a decision on when to join the series has been pushed back amid the delayed WEC season start to give more time to assess the GMR-001’s development.

The car enjoyed an encouraging Imola debut with Andre Lotterer describing the No. 17 car’s trouble-free run to the checkered flag as being the manufacturer’s “first victory.”

Source: Sports Car 365