Genesis Magma Racing left the 6 Hours of Barcelona with the best Saturday and one of the harder Sundays of its first FIA WEC season. Mathys Jaubert had put the #17 GMR-001 on pole, the first in the brand's history, with Mathieu Jaminet third in the #19. Six hours later neither car had scored: the #19 was classified 11th, one lap down, and the #17 finished 16th, three laps down.
Lost in the first lap
Overnight rain sent the whole field away on wet tyres. André Lotterer led briefly in the #17 before Dani Juncadella, in the faster-starting #19, passed him under braking for turn one. The lead lasted four corners. As the first driver to meet the wet track at racing speed, Juncadella was caught out at turn five, slid through the gravel and dropped to the back of the Hypercar field.
From there the afternoon became a recovery job. Both crews reported off-track moments in the changing grip, and the team says intermittent systems issues cost both cars time. Lotterer said the problems started after the first virtual safety car.
Half a second short
The #19 was the one that came back. Paul-Loup Chatin worked it towards the top ten as the strategy played out in the final hours, and Jaminet's closing stint brought it to within half a second of a points finish. The official classification has the #19 11th, 0.414 seconds behind the #35 Alpine in tenth.
The #17 took a drive-through penalty on top of its technical issues. Jaubert and Pipo Derani brought it to the flag without further trouble, in 16th.
Pace, not yet execution
Gabriele Tarquini put it plainly in the team's release: "The positive point for us is knowing that we have a good car, but it's clear that we also need to improve in certain areas, particularly in race trim." Justin Taylor said small technical issues "took us too long to sort out".
Monza on 8 November is the last round of Genesis's debut season, and the last chance this year to turn one-lap speed into points.
