Genesis is economically successful as a car company but their motorsports division is perhaps too successful, company president and chief creative officer Luc Donckerwolke told Newsweek during an interview at The National AutoMuseum – The Loh Collection this autumn.
The automaker, a division of Hyundai Motor Group, is using the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season as an extended testing session ahead of the company’s official entry into the series in 2026, racing alongside models from other automakers including Ferrari and Porsche.
The company plans to enter the car in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s GTP category from 2027.
“He really does not want to make us take any shortcuts,” Donckerwolke said, describing the company’s motorsports directive from Hyundai Motor Group executive chair and CEO Euisin Chung.
Donckerwolke talked of showing Chung photos and video of the team testing in the south of France in the early days of Genesis Magma Racing. The president shared Chung’s reaction saying, “He said, clearly, second place or third place is not enough. Tell me what you need to win.”
He continued: “He could say it’s good enough to be racing against Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc. Ferrari. No, he wants to win and he’s ready to invest.”
But, there are strings attached to that investment. Chung does not want the company’s portfolio of passenger cars to suffer while attention is also paid to the motorsports program. “He’s not going to invest in a motorsport program to win if the product is actually being compromised,” Donckerwolke said.
Training today for tomorrow’s success
Genesis team drivers André Lotterer and Luis “Pipo” Derani drove the GMR-001 Hypercar in WEC this season under the project name Genesis Magma Racing Trajectory Program. Jamie Chadwick joined the effort and has signed to stay as a Program driver through 2026.
“Since the beginning of the Genesis Magma Racing Trajectory Program, we targeted top five results, and challenging for podiums,” said Genesis Magma Racing Sporting Director Gabriele Tarquini in a late October press release. “We have far exceeded that with three race wins from six races, and some other great individual and team performances.”
Despite the team’s standout performance while trialing this year, Donckerwolke expects it to take “two, three years” to be a contender for the WEC championship.
Will Genesis enter F1?
When pressed about future race series plans, including Formula One, Donckerwolke said, “We see all the other ones. But at the moment, we’ll focus on [WEC]. First, we have Kilimanjaro to climb, and then we will have Everest.”
He continued the analogy saying, “We have a long-term strategy, but we will not do the next steps if we’re not successful in the first step. We, at the moment, are saying that we don’t look at the other peaks and mountains to climb. We say we need to be successful climbing this one.”
Starting from zero in Korea
Donckerwolke pointed out that it’s important to note that Korea and Hyundai Motor Group have historically not been involved in motorsports. It’s only in the last decade that it has truly invested in its efforts.
“Motorsport is something which is new to Korea. It is about generating another level of emotional binding with the brand. And, it is very important because it brings another level of competitiveness,” he said.
“It’s about never resting on your laurels. It’s also about learning to do things which are not forbidden, instead of doing things that are allowed. It’s a different mentality. If you want to be innovating, you have to read between the lines of the rules, and you have to do things that people didn’t think to forbid, and that means that things that your competitors did not do. This is a mentality that we have to bring into the company, because Koreans are very, very respectful of the rules.”
Donckerwolke noted the speed with which the Genesis motorsports program spun up. He proposed the program, including the costs, to the executive chair and within four days he had an answer. Eleven months later, the team was testing in France with a team and a car. “This shows that you can dream and you can make those dreams a reality,” he said. November 2025 marks 13 months since the program was approved.
Learning from lessons of the past
Before he worked for Hyundai Motor Group, Donckerwolke worked for Volkswagen Group, which was the subject of the notorious Volkswagen emissions scandal (also known as Dieselgate). A decade ago, various global government agencies began an investigation that would eventually reveal that Volkswagen had manipulated the emissions testing results of 11 million vehicles globally. The vehicles emitted 40 times more nitrogen oxide than they registered.
Eight now-former Volkswagen executives were charged with crimes related to the scandal. As of May 2025, four had been convicted in German courts, with two receiving multi-year prison sentences.
“I had been working for a group that destroyed itself by not being respectful of the rules and this was a big mistake. You have to be careful, but at the same time, you have to be careful not to be too careful, because otherwise you stay behind and the others innovate, and then you think [that you] should have seen that opportunity,” he said.
He described arriving in Korea and realizing there the car culture scene was in its infancy saying, “When I arrived 10 years ago in Korea, I was highly frustrated. I said, ‘Okay, where’s the automotive scene? Where’s the cars and coffee? Where’s the next race?’ And people would look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Creating young, Korean car enthusiasts
Donckerwolke’s work is cut out for him. “I need the Koreans to see more than the novelty, to be attracted to a product. I need them to be emotionally attracted to the brand. And for me, that comes to the point of creating a motorsport scene in Korea,” he said.
That starts with the youth. While many Koreans grow up aspiring to be championship golfers and baseball players, Donckerwolke is committed to helping young Koreans get interested in motorsports and hopes some grow up dreaming of being race car drivers.
“Baseball has developed to almost a national sport in Korea, after golf, in very short time, 10 years or so. Let’s face it, the previous generations had a lot to fight for to rebuild the country, and now suddenly the country is opening to new universes, new ecosystems, new developments. And, part of [that newness] can be motorsport,” he said.
