Sofronas: Herberth Tie-Up “First Step” in Au Partnership

GMG Racing team owner James Sofronas described the alliance between his team and Herberth Motorsport at the Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS as a potential first step towards a longer-term partnership with Bronze-rated driver Antares Au.

In addition to fielding its own Pro-Am entry, GMG is also providing logistical and operational support for the No. 10 Porsche 911 GT3 R in the eight-hour race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Sofronas revealed to Sportscar365 that the alliance between the two teams is the result of a long-standing relationship between GMG and Au, who shares the No. 10 Porsche with Loek Hartog and Patric Niederhauser.

“I’ve known Antares for well over 15 years,” said Sofronas. “He’s first a client of ours; we supplied some parts for his Porsches.”

“Over the years we’ve kept in touch and then met up in Spa three years ago and continued to build a friendship, although he’s halfway across the world.

“We always talked about doing some racing together and I figured this may be the first step to working on a partnership in supporting his efforts.

“Our engineers knows their team very well and Antares as well. They asked if they could get some logistical support and overall some tactical support for their efforts.

“I was happy to do it because he’s such a great guy. I know what it’s like to go overseas and need a little bit of help.

“I wanted to do it in a minute, and so far, so good.”

When asked what bases are covered by GMG at Indy, Sofronas detailed that it includes ‘all the equipment, hospitality and support staff’ for the German squad.

“Basically just making it easy for them to come here with their container, drop it off and roll into something already set up,” he said.

Additionally, Sofronas explained that there is “some general knowledge sharing” between the two squads throughout the weekend.

“I don’t know if they’re actually debriefing specifically on setups,” he said.

“I’m letting my team manager and the engineers just decide on that but I’m sure there’s a lot of backdoor discussions to help one another.

“Both teams have very capable drivers. Obviously [Ayhancan] Guven and Tom [Sargent] are quick and they have their top drivers over there.

“I would like to think there will be some more communication between the two of them.”

The support for Herberth is in addition to an already packed weekend for GMG, which competing in both the Indy 8H and fielding a three-car effort in GT America powered by AWS.

Sofronas himself will pilot the No. 14 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II for the pair of 40-minute races, while CJ Moses and Kyle Washington drive the No. 58 Audi R8 LMS GT2 and No. 32 Porsche, respectively.

Additionally, Sofronas’ teenage son Jenson is racing in the Toyota GR Cup North America as part of the support bill.

“We have a total of 30 people here, overall, between both efforts and our GT America efforts,” Sofronas said.

“We’ve dialed in the program throughout the year so I don’t think this is anything we’re concerned about managing.

“For me, I’m just racing for fun and trying to go for wins. It’s good to have CJ back in the car. He’s long overdue, another good friend, and obviously Kyle is all in with his program.

“We’re running on all cylinders.”

Hartog Profiting from “Super Useful” Carrera Cup Knowledge for U.S. GT3 Debut

Loek Hartog, who has joined Herberth as the Silver-rated driver for the eight-hour enduro, will be making his first GT3 start in the U.S. this weekend.

The Dutchman returns to The Brickyard just two weeks after he completed a weekend sweep in Porsche Carrera Cup North America with Kellymoss.

Hartog believes the additional track knowledge gained from racing Porsche Cup machinery will be an advantage as he seeks to help Au secure the Independent Cup title.

“Super useful,” Hartog told Sportscar365. “It really helps.

“I would say the Yokohama is a very similar tire to the Pirelli, so I really could stick to the reference points that I had from two weeks ago.

“That really made my life easy, so I’m very happy. Especially with the Cup car, you get so much runtime compared to GT3 racing, so I feel like I have a bit of an advantage compared to others because I did so much miles in the Cup car a few weeks ago.

“So all the little tricks I’ve already discovered.”

John Dagys contributed to this report