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Gibson Technology

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Gibson Technology is an automotive and motorsport company based at Repton, Derbyshire, England, known primarily as a builder of LMP2 and LMP1 prototype engines for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and associated endurance championships. It was founded by Bill Gibson and Brian Mason in 1981 as Zytek Engineering and renamed Gibson Technology in October 2014.

Gibson and Mason founded the Zytek Group in 1981 with two main divisions: Zytek Automotive, based at Fradley, Staffordshire, focused on powertrain engineering; and Zytek Engineering, based at Repton, Derbyshire, handling motorsport development. In 2000 Motorola acquired a 19% stake in Zytek Automotive; in 2006 Continental AG purchased Motorola's automotive divisions and progressively raised its holding in Zytek Automotive to 50%, completing a full acquisition by 2014. Zytek Engineering remained under Gibson's leadership and was renamed Gibson Technology on 1 October 2014.

Zytek's motorsport brand, Zytek Motorsport, covered the group's racing product range and applications. In 1987 Zytek purchased the British Alan Smith Racing outfit to expand its involvement; the team initially supported the Jordan Grand Prix team in Formula 3000 before concentrating on engine development.

In 2002 Zytek acquired remains of the defunct Reynard Motorsport from International Racing Management, including rights to the Reynard 02S Le Mans Prototype. Zytek already supplied an engine to the existing chassis and built further copies under the name Zytek 04S, offering the chassis and engine as a complete package. The 04S debuted in the Le Mans Endurance Series in 2004 and finished second in the team championship in 2005 through two overall victories.

Regulation changes in 2006 prompted an upgrade to a revised 04S and a new car designated the 06S. Further changes in 2007 required an entirely new design, the Zytek-07S, which campaigned in both the LMP1 and LMP2 classes of the Le Mans Series. The GZ09S achieved immediate success in 2009, taking the LMP2 Le Mans Series Team Championship with Quifel-ASM and the Drivers' Championship with Miguel Amaral and Olivier Pla.

In 2009 Zytek Engineering became the first manufacturer to score a podium with a hybrid LMP, running the Zytek Q10 Hybrid — a non-invasive parallel hybrid system using a motor-generator, battery, and inverter to recover deceleration energy — with Corsa Motorsports, which finished on the podium on its debut at Lime Rock.

The Z11SN won the LMP2 category of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in both 2011 and 2014, and the Le Mans Series in 2011, in the hands of Greaves Motorsport (2011) and Team Jota (2014).

From 2017, under the Gibson name, the company became the exclusive supplier of the GK428 — a 4.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 producing approximately 600 hp — for the LMP2 class across the European Le Mans Series, FIA World Endurance Championship, and WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Two Gibson-powered LMP2 cars finished on the overall podium at Le Mans in 2017, with one leading the race outright until a recovering factory Porsche retook the lead.

In 2018 Gibson's new LMP1 engine, the 4.5-litre naturally aspirated GL458, was installed in Rebellion Racing's pair of Rebellion R13s and DragonSpeed's BR Engineering BR1. The engine brought Rebellion's R13s to a 3–4 finish (1–2 among privateer teams) at Le Mans behind the Toyota TS050 Hybrids. In February 2019, ByKolles Racing announced a switch to the Gibson GL458 from the Nissan Nismo VRX30A 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 in their CLM P1/01. Gibson was subsequently awarded the exclusive engine tender for the 2028 LMP2 regulations.

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